The Cash Based Society

When I was first going backwards and forwards to London back in 2005, I regularly picked up money from the streets as I went to and from work. Over an average year I would pick up £20 or so and that money was split between the children after we used one of those change machines in our local Sainsbury’s. It wasn’t much in the greater scheme of things but it was always nice to pick up a one pound or two pound coin as that supercharged the yearly amount.

Nowadays, there’s virtually no change on the streets and that’s, of course, because we are living in what is effectively a cashless society. Yes, there are advantages to not having to carry cash, but on balance I think it’s been a negative change. Why do I think this? Well, first of all, I think it’s far more difficult to control your spending when you’re using contactless payment. When you take £20 out of the bank in cash and you have £10 left, you know you have spent £10. When you have a card you don’t know how much you have spent particularly if you are tapping in a number of different places. It’s incredibly easy to lose control of your spending when that happens. Small charities are losing out with on street collections which are pretty much a thing of the past. It’s OK for the bigger charities because they can get by with regular payments online or having the money to provide collectors with tap and pay machines.  Events like Dickens Christmas have lots of stalls which used to get loads of cash but now require the initial outlay of the machines to get people to buy from them. When I went to Salzburg nearly every stall in the Christmas Market was cash only and it made it much smoother and much easier to keep track of. We took €50 out of the cash machine and when it was spent we left. It forced us to really consider what we were buying and why.

This might be old man shouting at clouds territory but I genuinely believe that life has been made more difficult for those of us who find it more difficult to budget and that we should return to a nice balance between cash and card to suit everyone. It won’t happen of course but it would change very little for those wedded to their card (or even their phone!) for payment while making lives less complicated for those who aren’t.