Nearly 43.
Never liked using cash, its always just been a massive pain in the arse. If I pick up lunch for team mates it really annoys me when they hand me over £4.35 in loose change.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
22 points (100.0% liked)
Ask UK
1815 readers
1 users here now
Community for asking and answering any question related to the life, the people or anything related to the UK.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Sounds like me being one of the arseholes handing over 15p in coppers lol
I get expenses from volunteering covered by cash and buses card reading is very unreliable where i live. Lots of the fish+chip shops are cash only. All this has cultivated an equal usage of cash and card for me.
Small businesses genuinely prefer to receive cash, too, so i try and do something nice for the shops in my community.
They prefer cash to evade taxes, same as small contractors.
What, small businesses? All small businesses in general?
I see it as they mainly do it just to avoid the small fee for card payment providers. I don't know if this exists for traditionak scanners but it's significant where i work, which uses Zello and Paypal.
But yes some places like cash so that they can more easily minimise taxable profits.
The tax evasion tricks at play aren't as bad as large corporations, and i don't ~~utilise~~ buy from businesses which are obvious money laundering fronts, so my conscience is clear. Allegedly (from business teachers at secondady school, who admittedly were wrong about a lot of things) so many small businesses do small things to minimise volume of taxable income, that it's not worth being concerned about.
Most probably can't be bothered, and don't drive the "cash please!" Thing too hard, so i think they deserve it... as a treat. And then there are other reasons cash is important to them, like facilitating change for old people and day labourers who use the business
Handling cash costs about as much as handling card transactions. It always annoyed me when I was working at conventions and people would assume that my business was better off with cash. Cash was a huge pain in the arse.
I definitely prefer my card wherever possible. Just tap it on the card reader and you're done. No change jangling around in your pocket. And you can see all your transactions in your banking app later on to see exactly where you've spent money. I want cash to stick around though because some people don't like using cards.
(32M) Since COVID I only used it for the barbers. I found a good Turkish one that takes bank transfers now though, so never.
I do have emergency money in my bike toolkit though just in case.
Very very rarely, and I generally actively avoid it. There's only really my barbers that I occasionally use it for as their card payments seem to be intermittent.
I find cash impractical: it often gets lost when it gets converted into change, or notes get put in a pocket and forgotten about, and it's difficult to track where it's being spent, where you can break down each electronic transaction.
Aye but when you find the note again its a bonus tenner or a twenty ; )
I want to say I use cash and defend it. I hate that every transaction is now passing through a US company, taking a slice, when I'm paying a local shop...
But.. it's just so easy to use plastic.
And that's the point, it's like saying to anyone with any kind of substance issues to just not use the stuff, it's so hard to give it up...
Which is why I want to use cash, but, apart from tax-efficient takeaways and car parking... I don't think I use cash
Fully understand, although I must admit I never used primarily card as I was brought up by a boomer and all my first ""jobs"" were cash in hand! (although a £50 note & 2 bags of logs for a days labour at 13 was very very good). If you want to get into it just take out 100 for the week and spend only that, the change (including coppers) is free pint money!/cafe money if you don't drink.
I still use it for the same reasons you mentioned. Also small businesses since they don't have to deal with card processing fees then (generally ask what they prefer) plus "other accounting measures".
Based
Honestly, never. I've never struggled with budgeting and all I really buy in real life is coffee and food if on the go, and they all seem to be cashless these days. I get the privacy concerns but have to balance it with just trying to live life.
Must admit if a establishment is cashless I actively go out of my way to avoid them, mostly out of bloody mindedness.
Where do you live out of interest? I can't help but feel some covid so many businesses moved away from cash.
Grew up in a extremely rural area which likely had something to do with it, currently live in a small city & have continued the habit.
Basically never. The occasional car boot sale. That's about it. Any cash I receive ends up sitting on a shelf as my wallet doesn't have a space for it. The notion of relying on cash for budgeting makes no sense to me.
I'm not looking to get rid of cash, but it has no use case for me.
Even the local teenager that mows my lawn takes bank transfers!
In terms of budgeting its fairly simple, I take out £100 to take around with me and generally leave the cards at home. Thusly I can only spend that 100 quid.
I think I'd call that limiting spending rather than budgeting. Budgeting would involve keeping track of how much is spent on different things, projecting future spending, stuff like that.
Not really, take the 100 out then divide known expenses you'll be using it for, shopping, petrol the usual and anything left over is fun money for the week.
That isn't how I approach budgeting at all, so it explains why I don't get it. I'm glad you have a system that works for you.
The downvote suggest you'd rather I stop talking though so I'll leave it there.
Yeah, try to use it where possible
Not very often. Bank notes are little more than illegal drug purchase vouchers these days.
I dunno about that, bought a entire car with them recently.
In the US, if police find large quantities of cash on you, they can declare you a drug dealer, with no evidence, and no charges, and take the money under civil forfeiture.
Many have had all their money stolen by police because they were moving or they were on the way to buy a car. Shithole country.
What do police do with the seized money? Margarita machines.
https://www.riaclu.org/news/margarita-machines-zamboni-and-no-due-process/
I’ve not used it in over 20 years, and I don’t miss it.
I use card for most of my transactions, but in cornershops, independent shops or smaller businesses i usually ask what they prefer. It's not always cash! sometimes they prefer card as it's easier for them to handle.
Interesting what you say about people your age, I've noticed actually that children/teenagers tend to use cash because they don't have a bank account or any income to put in a bank account, but then when they get to 18+ they start using card more.
Good on you for asking! I hated having to deal with cash as a small business.
If you were up to anything on the dl it’d be way less sus to have a current account full of the normal behaviour of a perfectly normal citizen, and do your black economy stuff in cash. Sort of how getting into the US is going to be a lot harder if you say “ackshually I’m on something called Lemmy” vs if you have an x.com where you occasionally post stuff like “all hail the eternal god emperor, he will make the West strong again!” and “This is fine”.