# Why do you never carry cash? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768 "2010-10-01T19:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/121 "2010-10-06T07:05:23Z")
I wonder what percentage of small businesses refuse to take cards of any kind because of the fees the credit card companies/banks charge? Personally, there’s one I at least walk in the door for once a week. When those fees go down, or disappear, _maybe_ then there will be more movement towards cashlessness. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/122 "2010-10-06T09:23:44Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I wonder what percentage of small businesses refuse to take cards of any kind because of the fees the credit card companies/banks charge? Personally, there’s one I at least walk in the door for once a week. When those fees go down, or disappear, _maybe_ then there will be more movement towards cashlessness. Certainly in the UK these companies are getting rarer all the time. There are plenty here who have a minimum amount for card transactions (usually £5), but often they’ll just add an extra 50p to the bill to cover the card processing costs. Alternatively many also offer cash-back - i.e. you pay £3 for goods and add another £10 to the total, so the bill is £13 but you get £10 in cash. All big supermarkets offer this service as a matter of course, so I rarely use an ATM these days. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/123 "2010-10-06T14:28:28Z")
> [@AmunRa](#): > > > [@lorene](#): > > > > Me, too, but mainly because of the amount of cash non-cash people are carrying around _for emergencies_… > > In my case it is really just a hold over from the days when if I didn’t carry cash I wouldn’t be guaranteed to have it available. Now thanks to better financial security and money management skills it is largely unnecessary, but it is still convenient if I find myself in a restaurant or something where they only take cash. Plus 100 dollars isn’t exactly a huge sum, if I lost my wallet I would be mildly disappointed, but it wouldn’t destroy me financially. Hmmm. OK. I wouldn’t be destoyed financially if I lost $100, but I’d be much more than mildly disappointed. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > What kind of emergencies would require you to carry that much money? Other than one’s car being towed, I can’t think of any. And why would you ever walk around with a few thousand in your wallet? That I don’t get at all. > > For two or three decades, I only had a savings account, and my credit union is quite inconvenient to get to. So I tended to carry most of my spending money around with me. > > Now I have electronic deposit and a debit card. OK, I get that, too. I just couldn’t figure out why, even if you only took cash out of the bank once every few weeks, you would opt to carry it all at once rather than leaving some at home in a safe place. I do that now, even with much smaller amounts of money. If I have $100 cash, but won’t need more than $20 or so for a few days, I leave some of it at home. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/124 "2010-10-06T14:31:08Z")
I usually did leave most of my cash at home. The $2-3K was walking around money. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/125 "2010-10-06T19:32:57Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I usually did leave most of my cash at home. The $2-3K was walking around money. Ok, clearly we are in different income brackets. :o ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/126 "2010-10-06T22:28:51Z")
It’s not just different income brackets, I’m the granddaughter of immigrants on one side. The Bodonis have always carried around plenty of cash, when we have it. It’s part of our culture. It’s probably also because Grandpa Bodoni was active in the Mafia for a while, and of course they didn’t use banks for most transactions, just cash. Even though Daddy was never actually in the Mafia, his older brothers were, and he learned to carry cash from them. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/127 "2010-10-06T23:31:05Z")
I make the vast majority of payments on a card, but still always carry cash because I cannot think of any good reasons not to do so. The risk of loss is minimal; going to an ATM is not inconvenient because it is right there in the parking lot at the supermarket (or I can get cash back); and there are several things I pay for where only cash will do. I don’t care about people who do not carry cash except when they end up asking me to help them out because they have no cash and therefore cannot contribute to the baby pool/lunch/donation/whatever and explain that they don’t carry cash in a tone of voice that indicates that they consider it to be some sort of a virtue. ---
**Author:** ![lorene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/65b543/32.png) [@lorene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorene)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/128 "2010-10-07T00:52:06Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > It’s not just different income brackets, I’m the granddaughter of immigrants on one side. The Bodonis have always carried around plenty of cash, when we have it. It’s part of our culture. It’s probably also because Grandpa Bodoni was active in the Mafia for a while, and of course they didn’t use banks for most transactions, just cash. Even though Daddy was never actually in the Mafia, his older brothers were, and he learned to carry cash from them. OK, I thought maybe the emergencies you were carrying that cash for were of the Chanel handbag-buying kind. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/129 "2010-10-07T01:06:44Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > It’s not just different income brackets, I’m the granddaughter of immigrants on one side. The Bodonis have always carried around plenty of cash, when we have it. It’s part of our culture. It’s probably also because Grandpa Bodoni was active in the Mafia for a while, and of course they didn’t use banks for most transactions, just cash. Even though Daddy was never actually in the Mafia, his older brothers were, and he learned to carry cash from them. Dude (and in my parlance that includes women), I’ve suddenly seen you in a whole new light after these odd 11 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/130 "2010-10-07T03:41:01Z")
My hatred of cash comes from when I was selling Avon. I was getting a lot of people who assumed I wanted to be paid in cash, but would never have exact change, even though I told them exactly what they owed before I made their deliveries. Then I had to either wait to make the deliveries or go find change for them and bring it back and blah blah. No, I took checks and I took credit cards (though Avon imposed a fee I was free to waive it, and would) but no, people insisted, even on huge orders, which was a growing hassle for me because cash meant getting to the bank when I could make a teller deposit – you can’t put coins (and I prefer not to put bills) in an ATM. The only time I have **needed** cash in this entire calendar year was when I drove to North Carolina and had to pay some tolls. And I was unaware when I hit the first toll booth; fortunately I keep loose change in my ashtray, then I stopped and hit an ATM at a truck stop to get $10 in case there were any others. That was in March and I still have some of the change from that in my wallet. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/131 "2010-10-07T04:34:01Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > > > It’s not just different income brackets, I’m the granddaughter of immigrants on one side. The Bodonis have always carried around plenty of cash, when we have it. It’s part of our culture. It’s probably also because Grandpa Bodoni was active in the Mafia for a while, and of course they didn’t use banks for most transactions, just cash. Even though Daddy was never actually in the Mafia, his older brothers were, and he learned to carry cash from them. > > Dude (and in my parlance that includes women), I’ve suddenly seen you in a whole new light after these odd 11 years or so. When I talk about “my cousin Vinnie”, he’s imaginary. But yes, I do still have some rather distant family members who are in the Family. Grandpa and my uncles were just bootleggers during Prohibition, from what I understand. Grandpa was a commercial fisherman before Prohibition, but someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse in the early days of the Great Experiment, and he liked the money. He had six kids, which wasn’t that unusual for that time and place, and making bootlegging runs paid a lot better than catching fish, and it was generally safer, too. I’m not really proud of what he did, but I’m not particularly ashamed of it, either. It’s just part of our family background. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768/132 "2010-10-07T04:36:44Z")
> [@](#): > > OK, I thought maybe the emergencies you were carrying that cash for were of the Chanel handbag-buying kind. Nah. I’ve never bought a Chanel bag, I’ve never seen one that I liked well enough to pay that kind of money. And they aren’t big enough. I currently am using a rather small carry on bag as a purse, because it’s got POCKETS and POCKETS and POCKETSES! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-never-carry-cash/555768.md?page=6)