how long before cash is obsolete?

[MRG]

Hard to imagine strip clubs not taking cash. Until weed is legalized at the Fed level the dispensaries out here only take cash. Not that I do either of the 2 above, just saying.

I haven't used cash for cannabis for at least six months. Use my green Fidelity card and get the 2% cash back. [emoji41]

Haven't been to a strip club for a while but I'm guessing cash is still king.

The only thing I spend cash on is haircuts, Girl Scout cookies, and homemade tamales.

 

[Amethyst]

Cannot be too soon for me. It was frustrating during our visit to Thailand, having to juggle physical dollars and baht notes, coins, etc.
I did not mind so much in Vietnam and Cambodia, where people are poor and our U.S. dollar bills/$5.00 bills mean a lot to them.

I write the very fewest checks possible. The biggest checks we write are for construction, renovations, and taxes. Like others, though, I will respond to the threat of a percentage "load" for using a credit card! Even then, I try to use my bank's electronic check service, rather than a paper check with a stamp.

When I was 14, I wrote a school paper imagining what it would be like if all transactions, from paycheck to payment, were electronic (the assignment was "Think of something that could happen in the future.") Could hardly wait to qualify for my first credit card (age 24).

 

[Amethyst]

Cash for tips, when traveling. Haircuts go on the card!

The only thing I spend cash on is haircuts, Girl Scout cookies, and homemade tamales.

 

[Mdlerth]

It's all part of the plan. Now hand me my foil hat, please

Once they announce that coronavirus can survive on currency, it will be game over.

 

[Chuckanut]

Never, I hope. Why should I have to go through some 3rd party's financial system to buy a quart of milk?

 

[pb4uski]

Pretty soon. The young’ ens behind us don’t even know what it means to carry cash. I rarely carry cash. I am hard pressed to think of places that don’t take cards. With all the proliferation of merchant services even down to the farmer’s market level, cash will fade.

+1 We rarely use cash anymore... between DW and I we had a whopping 20 cash withdrawals from our bank last year. We went to a Tampa Rays MLB game last year and it was cashless... I tried to pay cash for parking but the gal said that the site was cashless so I use my card.

Tropicana Field will become the first cashless sports venue in North American, the Rays announced Friday.

The Rays said tests with analytics and emerging tech firm E15 showed that switching to cash-free will cut transaction times in half.

Payment forms to be accepted at Tropicana Field this season include major credit cards, Rays gift cards, mobile payments such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay and season-ticket holder Rays Cards, the team announced in a press release.

Fans without electronic forms of payment can exchange cash at all retail locations and through roaming gift-card vendors in $10 and $20 increments. ...

 

[sengsational]

Our grocery self-checkout machines accept cash and give change.

Yeah, self-checkout isn't a drive away from cash, as the OP was supposing.

If it wasn’t for cash, I wouldn’t have been able to make some beer.

Now THAT is an important reason to keep cash as an option.

Haven't been to a strip club for a while but I'm guessing cash is still king.

They could issue in-house currency to you from a credit card as you walk in (the casino model). But then they might have to deal with counterfeiting. Of course, those are the kinds of people who you don't want to cross.

 

[RobbieB]

I like cash and use it at all restaurants and all other purchases under $40.

 

[jim584672]

I hope cash never goes away. The self serve kiosks have cash inputs on them from what I have seen.

Loss of privacy in transactions is why I would oppose no cash. Also they can't make negative interest rates effective until they get rid of cash. Once they force all accounts to be electronic then they can debit out from everyone's account and there is no way to get around it.

 

[Midpack]

I assume cash will continue to decline as a payment option, but it won’t go away entirely in my lifetime, and I don’t really care. We rarely use cash for larger transactions, say $15 and up, but we rarely use a CC for anything under about $15 even though we usually could - which evidently (to my surprise) makes us relatively forward thinking according to the chart below.

Cashless might reduce petty robberies, there’s already evidence of it. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/cashless-society/477411/

If cash goes away I can live with it, but I know the “get off my lawn” generation will resist out of habit as much as anything...

But they can eliminate $#&@* pennies anytime and I’d be happy.

 

[rodi]

I was going to say that as long as there's dope, hookers and hitmen there'll be cash, but all of these are now bought using Bitcoin and other cruptocurrencies. So I'm not so sure anymore.

And you know they take bitcoin how?

 

[bbbamI]

Then there is a record of everything that you buy. The insurance companies get a hold of that data and your premiums soar because you purchased; alcohol, bratwurst, ice cream, bullets, bungee-jumping tickets, not enough toothpaste..................

I will continue to buy bacon, the heck with high premiums.

 

[Music Lover]

No, I don't see that happening. Lots of people on this forum could get by without cash but there are many, many people who couldn't. Underground economy, people who can't get bank accounts, people who don't want bank accounts, people who find it easier to manage money with cash...

...people who want to maintain some control over their money.

I can easily get by cashless but I choose not to. There are already issues with some credit card companies and banks refusing to do business with people that have the "wrong" political viewpoint.

 

[OldShooter]

Probably never, unless the government decides to make it illegal, which is where I understand Sweden is headed.

The unbanked poor, 20+% of US households, use cash extensively, as does the underground economy estimated at $2-3 trillion. The worldview of this FIRE group is really too narrow for a consensus to mean anything. When contemplating a cash-only family existence, we are like George Bush being amazed when encountering a supermarket scanner for the first time.

 

[TriumphTR3fan]

Last December I attempted to use a CC to make a large down payment to buy a car. We wanted frequent flyer miles. Tesla refused. They required either electronic funds transfer, check or cash. I wrote them a check. They told me that there had been instances of customers canceling CC transactions. They wanted something hard to cancel.
Yesterday the Oregon House of Representatives passed HB 4107 which banned natural hair discrimination & requires businesses to accept cash. Why the pairing? Both were considered discrimination. The bill passed with wide bipartisan support. It needs to be approved by the Senate. The Oregon Legislature is deeply polarized with Republican senators on the verge of walking out & leaving the state to deny a quorum to prevent action on another issue. For them to find common ground on this issue indicates how serious this subject is for them. Cash is still important here.

 

[calmloki]

Yesterday we went out to buy water at the coin-op water machine. $0.35/gallon, so I was plugging in quarters and dimes for each gallon I filled. Machine decided it didn't want to accept quarters, but no problem - it accepted credit cards - at a $0.10/transaction premium. Drove another mile or so to another water machine to park and fill the last two bottles because I just don't like surcharges. Decades ago I wouldn't have a checking account because they wanted $3/month for it - didn't get one till a car rental company wouldn't rent me a car for cash. Held back from credit cards for more years and remain confused about why checks and cards (promises to pay) are somehow held in higher regard than greenbacks.

Back in 2009 I hand carried a $5000 cashier's check to Palm Springs as a buyer's premium to bid on a house Auction.com was selling. Found out that if I signed in using that check I would be limited in my maximum bid, but if we used a credit card we could bid as high as we wanted. We went that route; bid more than the cashier's check would have limited us too, and bought our winter getaway. Paid for, ultimately, with numbers debited from our account and transferred to a big bank's account.

I like cash, we have a dumb amount of cash in envelopes, but mostly we just have numbers in accounts. Lord help us if hackers decide to make those numbers go poof. Whatcha gonna do if you go to your Fidelity account and it says $0.00 and keeps saying that?

 

[Dtail]

I suspect that cash will fade out as the Millenials dominate in the shopping world.

So it will become smaller overall as a share of retail but I do not see it disappearing.

Same thought.
We try to use our credit cards anytime we can for the points, unless I don't trust the vendor.

 

[REWahoo]

Whatcha gonna do if you go to your Fidelity account and it says $0.00...

Like yesterday?

 

[aaronc879]

I don't think it'll happen within my lifetime(~40 year). Most on here may be able to get by with only CCs but many of the not-so fortunate are not able to use CCs and have to use cash. With the continued widening of the gap income in the US I don't see an end to cash usage for a long long time. Have the country is in or near poverty and can't get a CC.

 

[stepford]

And you know they take bitcoin how?

Lots of articles about Bitcoin transactions of this sort on the Dark Web during the Silk Road take down way back in 2013. I don't really know any more than this as I'm old fashioned and still pay for all my vices in cash.

 

[MRG]

Like yesterday?

But it's a really cool site and and ...

 

[Midpack]

Last December I attempted to use a CC to make a large down payment to buy a car. We wanted frequent flyer miles. Tesla refused. They required either electronic funds transfer, check or cash. I wrote them a check. They told me that there had been instances of customers canceling CC transactions. They wanted something hard to cancel.

I don’t know what large means to you, but that’s not unique to Tesla - few if any US car dealerships will allow a customer to pay substantially with a credit card. I’ve tried several times. You can’t blame them (see below).

They will take a credit card for the initial deposit/earnest money, usually a couple hundred, but that’s it.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider: Dealers don’t want to accept credit cards. Just finding one willing to take a card for the entire purchase price will likely be impossible. That’s because merchants who accept them pay 1 to 4 percent to the card issuer in fees for each transaction they process. A dealership isn’t going to give up that much profit. It’s more likely that a car dealer will allow you to use a credit card for a portion of your down payment; their agreement with Visa, MasterCard, or American Express may also require them to accept payments by card.

Second, credit cards come with generous chargeback rights for customers who feel that they have been wronged by a seller. Just by placing a transaction into dispute, a customer could delay payment to the dealer for weeks or months. Most dealers are unwilling to accept that additional risk.

Additionally, credit card debt is considered unsecured, so the bank that issued the card can't repossess your car if you fail to make payments; a lender on a traditional car loan can repossess your car.

https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/can-i-buy-a-car-with-a-credit-card

 

[Sunset]

..
Taxing authorities are a good example. I'd prefer to not set up bank info to the govt. So I use a check.

..

By sending a check, you give the gov't your bank, account number, and signature.
Everything needed to withdraw money from your account.

 

[JoeWras]

By sending a check, you give the gov't your bank, account number, and signature.
Everything needed to withdraw money from your account.

Yes, yes. I knew someone would mention this. Of course.

My point is I'm not going to voluntarily put it in their system with a signed (electronic or otherwise) approval authorization. They could set up a scan of the routing number and store it, etc. But frankly, most govt. systems are too broken to do this. They want you to do the work, and I won't.

 

[thefist]

I have no problem with cash.
But I'd like checks to be abolished before I go to bed in a couple hours!