The Cashless SocietyFollow

We did away with the one and two cent coins in the 80s when the Treasurer noticed that people wouldn't bother to pick up dropped 1 and two cent coins in the street..

Historically inaccurate ****, go.

I believe that's called a "Cleveland creamer."

Well met, old chap. Well met.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2012 11:45am by Eske

I thought Jefferson was down with the brown?

Actually they've been making Presidential dollar coins recently too. I work at a dollar store, and I've had a few customers pay with them.

I really hate checks too though. I very rarely use them if I can get away with it. And, living in a retirement town like I do, most of our customers at work are old people, and a lot of the little old ladies like to pay with checks. On the plus side, we have this weird electronic check thing, where we stick the check in the verification machine, it voids the check and prints a slip for the customer to sign, and we hand the receipt and the voided check back to the customer. So I can at least suggest to the customer that they don't have to fill out the check if they don't want to, since we just void it and give it back to them. I still would much rather people use cash or plastic though. My mom isn't even that old, and she still insists on writing checks when she goes grocery shopping too. Well, I guess she is getting up there. She's almost 60. I just don't think of her as old because she doesn't look or act old most of the time, and she's my mom.

I think I will always need cash though, to try and limit my spending. At least until I get paid a salary that's decent anyways. With debit cards, I find it way too easy to just swipe it and not think anything of it, especially when I buy stuff at work. "Oh, it's just a dollar! I can afford this!" I ended up spending $35 over the course of March. That doesn't sound like a lot, but considering everything is a dollar or less, that's 35 things I bought. I spent way too much money on things that weren't necessary last month too. So what I'm planning on doing from now on is taking out $30 in cash every month, and only allowing myself to spend that on snacks for work and my weekly trip to taco bell. I think that should help a lot.

The presidential dollar coin series was cancelled in Dec 2011. Folks here just don't want dollar coins no matter who is on them.

I prefer using cash/coins for small purchases just because tracking a pile of $2 receipts and reconciling against the checkbook is a pain in the ***.

Edited, Apr 2nd 2012 2:06pm by Jophiel

My wallet doesn't have a place to put coins. So if it's not in bill form it probably isn't going to be carried with me. It was pretty much that simple.

I'd guess it helps for vending machines.

I have never seen anyone pay for anything in a shop by cheque.

I don't need anyone's account number. I just email them their money and tell them the password..heck there's a hint box for the password so most times I don't even have to speak to the person.

Email address > Cheque > Random batch of numbers

That being said, I almost never use cash, but I would never condone abolishing it (or some form of it at least). Electricity isn't permanent and neither is the internet. I don't care how reliable they become they'll never come close enough to the reliability of a physical object to negate the risks involved. We had a 3 day power outage here a few years back. Try buying baby formula in a cashless society when the power is out.

hmmm? you don't agree? Maybe our bank fees aren't ridiculous comparatively (though they seem that way) since I haven't really looked into it, but I know that we are getting gouged on mobile data and internet fees. It's just unbelievable. I mean, I am sure it is just an accident that all three companies that offer (for example) 3G for ipad have the exact same ridiculously overpriced "plan" (anything over 500 MB and up to 5GB is $35/month) but it sure seems like a racket some days.

Edited, Apr 3rd 2012 2:25pm by Olorinus