I’m perfectly happy with using an ATM card to pay at EFTPOS, and I have no trouble with buying things online using my Credit Card, but I really like to have actual cash in my wallet. And what’s more, preferably notes and not coins, even though coins are useful for small purchases. I like to carry twenties, but not so many that if I was robbed it would be a devastating loss.
If I was mega-rich, I’d keep a stash of notes handy at all times that I can restock my wallet with, either via ATM or a safe or whatever. For some reason it just feels right.
If I have checks/debit card that can be overdrawn…I HAVE MONEY! Seriously, It took me years to figure out that I should never, ever have a checking account. I just can’t. Judge all you want, at least I am cognizant. Yes, I have tried over the years to change this. I just…can’t.
I am lousy with money. I always think I have more than I do, and always “estimate” on the low end of rounding in my head.
Therefore, I have a savings account, a brokerage account and cash. If I had a debit/credit card, I would be constantly in trouble.
I have cash. Can’t spend more than I have. Can’t take out more than is there. I am MUCH more cognizant of money spent in cash. All the rest is abstract.
That brokerage account? It has a few 6 figures in it. But it isn’t “mine”. It is some weird entity I will be able to access far into the future.
I’m a smart woman. I know math. I always think I can “think” my way to better finances.
About 30, I realized I. Am. Smart enough to know NOT to have a readily accessible way to get “fake” money.
There lie monsters.
What is less “real” to me is money in investments or savings accounts. If I can’t get at it without some level of bureaucracy, it’s less “there” to me.
Let’s start a club of totally backwards people, me, you and that other guy. It makes no sense to have to tell myself “Cash is real money,” but I have to do it, else I’ll blow right through it. Well, I blow right through it anyway, but in theory.
Edit: I meant Hello and Splines. You can join too, Stu, but there’s a fee.
Now I’m wishing the poll options were just slightly different, with separate options for plastic (paid off every month) and plastic (keep a balance).
Strictly speaking, a credit card does allow me to spend money that I have right now, but I don’t, because if I were to do, I’d not have the money to pay it off at the end of the cycle.
I suggest (therefore) that people’s perception of their equality with paper cash has to do with one’s paying-off habits.
I agree with this. My mom thinks I am off my rocker for paying for everything on a card (2% cash back, baby) because she has always used cash as a budgeting tool. (She has different envelopes for different things and puts the money in there, her purse looks like an envelope factory.)
I use a (fairly complex) spreadsheet for budgeting purposes and expense tracking and everything that goes on a card is easy to include. Anytime we take out cash, I have to record it under some category (there is no misc, dragons be there) and it can get tricky.
And I pay it off every month. So, I get the ease of tracking my expenditures (in all my anal retentive detail) and 2% cash back. What’s not to love?
If we didn’t pay off the balance, I can see how the money wouldn’t feel real (and, in fact, my husband was an offender at this and took some retraining).
No, not at all. I feel the pain numerically, regardless of the method of payment. The only additional thing I associate with physical cash is “hassle”.
I feel exactly the same way. Once I’ve taken money out through the ATM that money feels spent to me instantly, so the cash is like bonus money. I only take out maybe $20 a week, or when I get a birthday check or tax refund I take like $40 and deposit the rest and the cash is fun and fast.
Living in Las Vegas, this is an excellent question.
I use plastic when I go grocery shopping, or buy something at a store - but I keep a running tally of how much money I have in my account.
However, when going to a casino, you obviously need to have cash, but that is good as I take exactly what I can afford to lose (very little) and when that “cash” is gone, so am I from the casino.
There has been talk for years about creating a slot in slot machines where you can slip in your credit/debit card and play. I think that would be a HORRIBLE idea. Having to go to an ATM to get cash lets you know you are exceeding your “limit”, whereas not paying attention and letting the machine suck money out of your account could run into some serious problems.
At any rate, I voted “same” because, on a tight budget, I still know how much money is going out - be it plastic or paper.
Paper cash feels more real to me, and this is what I prefer to use. My motto has always been “speak softly… and carry a big wad of cash”.
Around here though many store employees check authenticity of paper money with a “magic pen”, attempting to determine if the bills are bogus or not.
I am forever tempted to ask them if they have any clue how their “counterfeit” ink markers work. And once in a while I will. No one ever does, of course.
Government spends heaps designing money to thwart counterfeiting - incorporating polyester security threads, newly improved watermarks - all so some bozo at Kmart can smartly swipe the bills with their fancy iodine-based ink pens - only to determine whether there’s starch in the paper or not.
And if the magic pen gives the okay, in to the cash drawer it goes!
Hello Balthisar, fellow Michigander! Do you know who James Randi is? The magician/scientific skeptic who debunks paranormal claims? I remember a few years back he was bitching about these pens and how they work (and don’t work).
…here’s a short thread that was posted here at the SD that has a little bit about the pens.
I’ll be over here eating worms, paid for by card.