Have you gone cashless?

[nickyboy]

The only time I use cash is the £1 to release the Aldi trolley, and I get that back an hour later

Like online shopping, Covid has just accelerated a process that was already well underway. Expect more and more establishments to be "card only"; cash for them is a pain to handle and the transaction charge is more than covered in reduced insurance premiums and banking time.

You only have to look at some developing economies that have all but done away with cash and all payments are made via e-wallets held on apps via mobile phone. In China you can buy a couple of oranges from a street vendor that way (they use a QR code so they don't have any expensive POS equipment)

 

[classic33]

Where are all the old notes?
"More than £24.5 billion in old fivers, tenners and twenty pound paper notes are still in circulation."
With over 122,000,000 in old £1 coins still unaccounted for.

 

[bruce1530]

Last March, lockdown hadn’t quite arrived, but i thought back to a previous similar incident. Beast from the East. Shops shut. Roads closed. Petrol stations ran out of fuel. Cash machines ran out of money.

so I filled the car with diesel, and took out £400 cash.

most of it was still in my wallet 4 months later. Eventually used it up for nieces birthdays, and on gumtree purchases.

 

[roley poley]

prefer cash to pay but carry my chip and pin card in a RF shielded plastic slip case to prevent unwanted reading by thieves in bus queues/ bars/trains ..dont know if I am being over cautious about that threat but I feel better for doing it

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

With over 122,000,000 in old £1 coins still unaccounted for.

Down the back of the sofa?

 

[Pale Rider]

Down the back of the sofa?

Someone must have a ruddy big one.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Someone must have a ruddy big one.

Oh I don't know, several million sofa's a few coins down each, it soon adds up.

 

[Pale Rider]

Oh I don't know, several million sofa's a few coins down each, it soon adds up.

That is almost certainly the (serious) answer.

According to the Office for National Statistics, there are 27.8m households in the UK.

One might assume that means there's roughly the same number of sofas.

Which is still three or four coins behind each one.

 

[tyred]

I can account for three of the missing old £1 coins.

I had one in my change jar and I found two more lying in the bottom of the door pocket of my "new" Skoda.

 

[Beebo]

I have an old £20 which I found a few months ago. I need to take it to the bank at some point.

 

[Chromatic]

After being a staunch supporter of cash I've started using my credit card for nearly everything now. What prompted it was my bank changing the T&Cs, they used to give points which could be redeemed for whatever but I never ever bothered doing so, but they have now changed to a cash back scheme where they give you a bit dosh once a year, the amount of which depends on how much you spend on the card in the preceding year. It is only 0.5% but every little helps.