[HN Gopher] Cash Amnesia
___________________________________________________________________
Cash Amnesia
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 73 points
Date : 2023-07-24 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gsb.stanford.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gsb.stanford.edu)
| superdug wrote:
| Meh. Come out with the hard truth, most expenditures we make are
| not fulfilling. The idea that we are spending money to gain
| something is a bullshit lie we convince ourselves of.
| Unfortunately non-tangible investments are the most terrifying
| expenditures. You physically have nothing to show for the money
| you no longer have and you question its validity and go so far as
| to course correct and buy something you can hold onto forever.
| What are these expenditures? Donations, endowments, and just
| using some of your means to give to someone who can benefit more
| than you could ever imagine. You know your neighbor who could use
| a night off, deliver dinner to them and their family. Your cousin
| who just got out on his own, deliver a weeks worth of essentials
| from Walmart. I could go on and on, but my personal way of
| expending my disposable income now a days is to do a free to
| sub-$100 favor for someone I know would appreciate help, but is
| too proud to ever ask for something that they weren't deathly
| desperate of needing. You come off as an empathetic and generous
| human being and you don't ever feel taken advantage of because
| you're the one who initiated it.
| bbstats wrote:
| If you don't have a lot of money this is true. I think the
| opposite happens if you are rich.
| MyNameIsRansom wrote:
| Lots of small businesses do "cash no tax". It's not forgotten
| when it's spent. I've fixed my car in cash (primarily to save on
| tax; and to not have it known by insurance). It's hard for one to
| "amnesia" $5000 in cash. It's a tool, just like a credit card.
| KomoD wrote:
| Is that legal?
| hammock wrote:
| Yes, and recently legal/not penalized for all credit cards in
| the US to advertise cash price and automatically add a fee
| for credit card purchases that is lightly advertised at point
| of sale
|
| Someone else can come behind me and cite the court
| case/credit card guidance
| chaorace wrote:
| Yes, it's generally legal to apply an additional surcharge
| on card transactions beyond the cash price, thus making it
| _appear_ as if the sales tax is being removed. It 's all
| above board as long as the full value of the sale is
| reported and taxed (exact details vary by tax code, of
| course).
|
| It's generally illegal, however, for a business to evade
| taxes by failing to report the full value of cash sales.
| It's also legally dubious as a customer to _knowingly_ help
| facilitate such transactions (e.g.: anti-laundering
| laws)... but I don 't think it's common to catch heat for
| this if you're an otherwise law-abiding person.
| AlanSE wrote:
| As in, they use tax to avoid reporting the earnings? That works
| fine for the scale of a lemonade stand.
| chrismcb wrote:
| I've never seen anyone do this. But, unless the small business
| is committing fraud, they are then eating the tax. I don't a
| small business is going to willing pay 10% (or whatever the tax
| is)
| Symbiote wrote:
| I sometimes saw my dad doing this in Britain, where it is
| certainly tax evasion. He'd ask the price of a service, then
| ask if there was a discount for "cash in hand". Occasionally,
| I think tradesmen would offer both prices upfront, or say
| "will you be needing a receipt?".
|
| It would have been a 15% discount for my dad (VAT was 17.5%),
| and probably a slightly larger saving for the tradesman,
| although they have a higher penalty if somehow caught. I
| think it was usually done for small jobs, like minor plumbing
| fixes.
|
| I have no idea how common this was in the 1990s, or how
| common it is now.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| I haven't either but I regularly see 3-5% cash discounts. Tax
| is 10% in my locality, in lower tax places it makes sense
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I use cash at small businesses to get a 1%-5% discount. The study
| seems to skip this use case.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Nah. Nothing induces guilt more than finding my wallet is empty
| again.
| malfist wrote:
| This goes against everything I'm familiar with around budgeting.
|
| One of the big tricks to getting your budget in check is to pay
| cash so you can see the money leaving your wallet. Swiping a
| credit card makes that all invisible
| CalRobert wrote:
| How strange - if I use my card it stings, I know I'll see it
| later (and I tend to tally up monthly expenses from CC
| statements). Cash in my wallet feels almost like free money by
| comparison.
| rob74 wrote:
| Looks like people are divided on this - I would say, when
| paying by card, it only stings once (if you even bother to go
| through the list regularly); when paying with cash, it stings
| twice: once when you have to fork out the actual money, and a
| second time when you realize you are out of cash ( _again_ )
| and have to get more from an ATM.
| CalRobert wrote:
| It depends on the person I suppose. I use cash rarely
| (mostly for tradespeople who are evading taxes) and when I
| "run out of cash" I don't really think more of it than when
| I run out of toilet paper.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I've heard that said, but it doesn't feel right.
|
| When I pay by card I have to ask myself: is there enough money
| in my spending account? Is this transaction going to fail? (I
| keep that balance low on purpose).
|
| Cash lets me sidestep the accounting: if I have it here at all
| it's pre-approved for spending. Lower cognitive burden there at
| the POS = easier to part with.
|
| Maybe that would be different if I did anything important in
| cash.
| von_lohengramm wrote:
| This is more about hiding/perpetuating bad habits vs enabling
| stupid purchases. Not about impulsively buying something just
| because it was on sale, but rather buying something you know
| you shouldn't... but it's just this once, I promise! No more
| after just this last one...
| tekla wrote:
| Uhhh what. Credit gives you a literal list of all the dumb
| purchase you made.
|
| Cash is just pieces of paper.
| wussboy wrote:
| The research is on your side. Spending cash makes you spend
| less. Most respondents to your comment are making a category of
| error that is common in our Internet age: "I have more
| information, therefore I am making better decisions."
| electroly wrote:
| This article is also a summary of research and it offers a
| disagreement. Just saying "I have research" isn't persuasive
| when the article at hand is newer research.
|
| This is the paper being discussed:
| https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-
| research/publications/p...
| mingus88 wrote:
| "I spent $100 on incidentals"
|
| Vs
|
| "I spent $100 on pizza and beer"
|
| Cash doesn't sit there in your ledger month after month
| reminding you of your weakness. Instead you have a generic
| line-item that doesn't threaten your ego; it could be anything.
|
| You will never know you spent $1200 a year on junk food and
| booze. It's just some vague category you can safely manage.
| brewdad wrote:
| About the only place I spend cash regularly is the farmers
| market. I typically take out 80-120 dollars on my way to the
| market and come home with anywhere from 0-60 dollars and a
| pile of produce. I also probably bought coffee and something
| for breakfast. As far as spending goes, I know the money
| probably went towards food (or was it flowers or some crafty
| thing?) but it's really just a black hole where I ultimately
| end up categorizing it as "cash spending" in my budget
| software rather than trying to rebuild where exactly it went.
|
| Credit cards work much better _for me_.
| rkangel wrote:
| I think this is ignoring that different approaches to budgeting
| are needed for different people.
|
| For me, I have a Monzo account that I put my monthly
| "disposable" income in. Monzo is a (mostly) UK digital bank
| with a good app that gives instant feedback on transactions.
| This means that after every transaction, Monzo tells me "you
| have PSX left this month". This allows me to regulate my
| spending (e.g. not buy X until next month) if I've spent a lot
| of my budget half way through the month. It also means that
| when I'm spending a lot I can go and look at my transaction
| history for the last few months and work out where it's going
| so I know _what_ spending to moderate. With cash that 's just a
| black hole.
|
| Also, I just find cash to be a pain to deal with and have
| basically eliminated it from my life. You have to regularly
| visit machines to make sure you've got some, you have to carry
| it around (notes are fine, coins are annoying), you have to
| faff when paying to give and receive the correct change.
| davchana wrote:
| My personal experiment in 2013 exactly matches your comment. I
| spent less when I used cash. I withdraw the same amount if
| monwy every month once a month, but the action of giving that
| money to cashier & checking the change and sorting out the
| notes in wallet made it real impact.
| r4indeer wrote:
| For me, I need to have it the other way around. Regular
| withdrawals of similar amounts on my bank statement tell me
| nothing about how I spent my money a month from now.
|
| When paying with card, I leave a paper trail for myself to
| review later. I can also look at my banking app anytime I want
| to check how much is left. I actually do that before most
| purchases that go beyond a few bucks.
| wussboy wrote:
| While I could make the same reply to almost every comment in
| this thread I have chosen yours at random.
|
| I believe you are conflating the goal of "spending less"
| (which is hard) with a simpler goal "knowing more about how I
| spent my money" (which is easy). You claim to review your
| paper trail to gain insights, but again, even if you truly
| did this consistently (and knowing human nature, I doubt that
| you do) this in no way means you spend less.
| [deleted]
| Finnucane wrote:
| I did this a long time ago, for a while I kept myself on a
| strict monthly cash budget to deal with some debts. In those
| days it was still relatively easy to get everything you needed
| locally for cash. It did mean that it didn't really matter that
| much what you were spending your money on, as long as the total
| didn't exceed the budget. You just had to be conscious of the
| choices. Even now, with the debts paid off I still live that
| way--I don't buy things unless I know I can pay for it, and I
| save some money every month. And I don't care that much about
| the details. I like spending cash just so I can forget about
| it. Do I really need an eternal record of that scone I bought
| on the way to work last week? I do not need that.
| electroly wrote:
| IMO, that's outdated advice from the days before online
| automatic bookkeeping, before credit card transactions were
| immediately visible online, before your bank could auto-
| classify your credit card purchases into spending categories,
| before configurable spending alerts, before budgeting apps with
| bank integration, etc.
|
| If you spend cash, you don't benefit from any of that and as
| soon as you forget about the transaction, it's like it never
| happened. Nothing will be able to help you retrospectively see
| where your cash is going. You can lie to yourself about it.
| Charges on a card statement don't lie.
| tiltowait wrote:
| It really depends on the person. I found that budgeting apps
| with bank integrations were quick and convenience, but I
| wound up in the trap of only doing the most superficial
| analysis. ("Yep, sure did spend that much.") For myself,
| manually logging purchases is _far_ more effective. It 's a
| similar observation as I had in college, where I found that
| hand-writing my notes helped me learn better than typing
| them.
| brightball wrote:
| It's not. The point of cash is to make you more
| psychologically aware of what you're spending so that you're
| less likely to buy something you don't need in the first
| place.
|
| All of the online transaction tracking only helps with
| purchases that you've already made, so you can say "maybe I
| shouldn't have done that"...after the fact.
|
| Cash based budgeting works beautifully, but it requires a
| change from what you're used to and there are certainly trade
| offs. If you're looking to save money though, cash budgeting
| is like magic.
| Larrikin wrote:
| It comes down to how you budget and pay your bills. If you
| take out large chunks of cash at a time then
| psychologically seeing the cash leave your wallet might
| personally help you if you treat budgeting as a once a
| month task. It's easy to get into trouble with a credit
| card if you never look at your transactions until the end
| of the month and treat the amount on your statement as a
| big blob you just have to pay while just glancing through
| your statement.
|
| If you actually use budgeting tools like YNAB which get you
| into the habit of spending a couple minutes every morning
| to confirm and categorize where your money went you end up
| with all the psychological benefits of cash, it's
| impossible to forget a transaction, you know exactly where
| your money went for years, and you end up with even more
| money due to the credit card rewards. I also usually take
| that time every morning to pay or partially pay on all my
| cards to make it even more obvious the cash that is leaving
| my checking account each day.
| djkivi wrote:
| If you pay with cash then once your wallet is empty
| you're done. I could spend far more on my credit cards
| than I actually have if I wanted to.
| Larrikin wrote:
| If you do then you can enjoy yourself the night, and
| limit your purchases for the rest of month.
|
| You also would have more money in your account if you had
| been getting the credit card rewards for years and could
| extend your night without spending more than you have.
| electroly wrote:
| I'm sure it does work for some people, but the popularity
| and success of budgeting apps suggests that it's not for
| everyone. The tradeoffs you mention are _all_ of the
| accountability features I mentioned. The article is
| reporting on research that suggests that unaccountable cash
| spending is a problem for many people.
| WJW wrote:
| I can easily see both depending on how diligently people track
| their spending. I have a budgeting system setup that adds a
| task to my daily to-do list if my bank balance differs from
| what is in my hledger files (ie if I have transactions in my
| bank account that I have not yet put into hledger). The chances
| of me not being aware of on-card spending is extremely low.
| Cash money is not tracked nearly as accurately though, I don't
| bother tracking it when I spend a few euro on some sandwich
| from a roadside stall.
| jfim wrote:
| That sounds like a pretty interesting setup, how do you have
| it work with your bank accounts?
| WJW wrote:
| It's extremely hacky and there is barely any automation at
| all. Everyday at 0500 a cronjob uses
| https://github.com/djc/abna to fetch the bank balance and
| makes no effort at all to automatically parse more than the
| balance. It then compares that with what the balance
| "should" be according to hledger and sets up a todo item if
| there is any difference. Somewhere during the day I
| manually reconcile the two and check off the todo item.
|
| I'm sure it could be smarter with automatic parsing and
| whatnot, but I actually kinda like the manual action. It
| makes sure I'm aware of everything happening to my bank
| account. Time spent per day is actually quite low because
| it's kept updated and there is never any big backlog of
| transactions. I would say it takes 2-3 minutes if there are
| any transactions, or zero ofc if I didn't spend anything.
| noeontheend wrote:
| Can I ask how you get the current balance from your bank
| (i.e., do you have a bank that provides a nice API, or is
| there another trick you're using)? I've spent a lot of time
| looking for a way to automatically download transactions from
| all my accounts but still have to either enter them by hand
| or manually log in and download a CSV to import.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| On the other hand, I can book keep all my electronic
| transactions thanks to the many Yodlee-powered sites whereas
| the effort it takes to do that for cash transactions is
| phenomenal.
| EGreg wrote:
| How quaint. Countries around the world are gradually phasing out
| cash, and forcing banks to report any transactions that add up to
| more than $600. They want the tax revenue and ultimate control --
| but they'll claim it's mostly to prevent "money laundering".
|
| This is like analyzing the details of how people use vinyl
| records to play music. It won't matter in 1-2 decades.
| anamexis wrote:
| > This is like analyzing the details of how people use vinyl
| records to play music. It won't matter in 1-2 decades.
|
| Sounds like what people were saying about vinyl records 2
| decades ago.
| EGreg wrote:
| And they were correct
| chrismcb wrote:
| America started to do this to try to collect taxes on small
| transactions. Not to prevent money laundering.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| And I don't mind it at all.
|
| Unreported cash transactions create a whole separate economy
| that is exploited.
|
| Take your local AC guy. Writes receipts, reports income,
| charges sales tax, gives the employees insurance etc...
|
| Now the other guy, who doesn't do anything, and because of
| that is able to undercut the guy above by 10%.
|
| Short term? Great, your AC is 10% cheaper. Long term? You got
| 5 people in your neighborhood who lost their job because a
| law that's there to protect them isn't enforced.
| EGreg wrote:
| I wonder if you would mind when this happens to you:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/1/18246297/china-
| transportat...
|
| Or maybe this:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-
| pro...
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I'm not in the business of paying higher prices to keep
| people employed.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > "Certain products are more guilt-inducing because they feel
| more like impulsive purchases, like a foam hand for the sports
| game," Huang says. "Some are more rational purchases, such as
| books or stationery products for class." Sure enough, they found
| that customers were more likely to pay in cash for harder-to-
| justify items like stuffed plush mascots and Christmas ornaments.
|
| Or perhaps the group of people buying harder-to-justify items
| tend to be people who don't bother to learn the perqs of credit
| cards or don't have enough credit, so they'd use cash regardless
| of what they're purchasing, but they purchase junk, so they end
| up painting this author's picture either way.
| GravelRocks wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "Another study explored shoppers' preference for untraceable
| payment methods besides cash. Half the participants were
| informed they had a $20 bill and a debit card linked to their
| bank account; the other half were told they had a $20 bill and
| a prepaid debit card. The researchers found that people with
| the debit card were more likely to use cash to make a harder-to
| justify purchase (in this case, a party-sized bag of M&M's).
| However, those with a prepaid card used it as often as cash to
| buy the candy."
|
| Doesn't that study control for specifically that counter claim?
| JohnFen wrote:
| I carry and use cash by default for general privacy reasons,
| but also use a card sometimes. In looking at the two purchases,
| it seems that I'll use a card when the amount of the purchase
| is high enough that I am not likely to have the cash in my
| pocket and in urgent (I wanted to say "emergency", but not just
| actual emergencies) situations.
|
| If it's a purchase of under $10 or so, I'm exceptionally
| unlikely to use a card -- and I suspect that most of my
| impulse/fun purchases (like a foam finger would be if that was
| my thing) would be in cash for that reason, not because I felt
| an guilt about them.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| When I first moved to North America, the idea that a credit
| card company was allowed to give people cash back, offer
| insurance, etc. for using their cards seemed like some
| bizarroworld "how is this legal" concept. Having lived here for
| decades, it still is. It's like an alcohol shop rewarding its
| most alcoholic customers by giving them free booze.
|
| And then if you sign up for a new card, or you cancel a card,
| some random private company decides to rate you and then banks
| look at that private company's data to decide whether or not
| you're a good little consumer worthy of their business?
|
| Credit cards might have been a reasonable idea, but give me
| direct, free, immediate digital banking and debit cards any day
| of the week please. The US went "what if we took the worst way
| to do banking, and made that the default?" and that's why banks
| don't even handle affordable EFTs themselves. It's the
| creditcard companies again.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I feel like it'd be totally normal for any restaurant or
| store to give a discount to its best customers
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| "You're taking a lot of drugs, we're going to make sure you
| keep taking them by giving you free drugs" is extremely
| different from "you're buying a lot of bras, we're going to
| give you a free bra". This should not even require pointing
| out, but apparently it does.
| saltcured wrote:
| But, you are begging the moral question in assuming that
| credit cards are obviously like "drugs".
|
| For me, a credit card and a debit card are just different
| accounting systems for the same thing. Either one has
| zero interest when I manage my expenditures properly and
| do not carry a debt. Either one could trigger penalties
| and/or interest if I outspend my budget.
|
| I still prefer the credit card because of the frequently
| mentioned difference in consumer fraud protection. My
| fear is that the credit card providers will eventually
| erode their protections to match the debit card rather
| than the converse.
|
| I do NOT want to participate in a system where a chip-
| secured/card-present transaction is now presumed to be
| valid and I have a difficult battle to contest a charge.
| If the card is made that valuable, I would then withdraw
| from the casual retail marketplace and keep my card
| locked up in a safe as others have mentioned in other
| threads.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Except this isn't about you. There are plenty of folks
| who can responsible take drugs, too, doesn't make trying
| to keep folks hooked any less destructive and predatory.
| All you're being is an outlier in the highly lucrative
| debt trap that credit cards offer the average credit card
| owner.
|
| Congrats on not falling for it; for you, a thousand
| people who do.
| inconceivable wrote:
| no, absolutely no debit cards for me. i protect my cash with
| multiple layers of protection. if i lose my wallet or my
| phone the person who ends up with these things will have no
| clue where most of my money is at.
|
| amex takes most if not all the risk in my financial life when
| it comes to day to day spending. one time i had my wallet
| stolen and the only thing they could muster was a failed gas
| station transaction. they didn't even try the ATM card.
|
| i use the free points/perks that the irresponsible idiots
| subsidize to my own advantage. it's linked directly to my
| amazon account and shows up as a positive cash balance.
| claytonjy wrote:
| Is your ATM card not also a debit card? Mine have always
| been both.
| toast0 wrote:
| You can get ATM-only cards, but you have to ask for them,
| and keep asking... at my credit union, I had an ATM-only
| card for a while, but when it expired, they sent a debit
| card and I didn't think it was worth the effort and waste
| to request they make and send a new ATM-only card at that
| point.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| mine is but I have a system very similar to the OP you
| responded to. I do not carry my debit card unless under
| specific circumstances (ie: When i traveled to Vietnam I
| carried it). Also that specific debit card is tied to a
| limited account with a minimum balance. Enough to take
| cash out but not the main account i pay bills out of etc.
| Its used specifically as a medium for transactions to
| services (ie: Venmo, CashApp or ATM withdraws) with a
| limited balance in case its comprimised.
|
| My primary bank account debit card never leaves the safe
| unless for a specific trip to the ATM etc, even then most
| of the time i got to a branch directly.
|
| Vendors (ie: Stores, Restaurants etc) will not ever swipe
| even my debit card first discussed. That goes through
| Amex or a backup Visa card. Those balances are paid in
| full monthly via bill pay from the main bank account.
|
| My wife also has a similar auxilliary bank account+debit
| card with minimum balances but generally also uses Amex
| or the Visa CC on that account.
|
| So we structure our finances this way
|
| 1. Primary Joint Account + Savings - Pay bills out of
| only. No ETF allowed or ATM allowed in general.
|
| 2. Secondary Joint Account + Savings (both his and hers)
| - use for special uses, ie: Venmo, CashApp ETF, ATM
|
| 3. Primary CC accounts - Amex, Visa (his and hers) - used
| for day to day purchasing. Paid in full monthly via #1.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > some random private company decides to rate you
|
| Where did you move from that didn't have a private company
| assess your creditworthiness before issuing you a loan? If
| each bank/credit card company did so separately, what is the
| issue with outsourcing it to a specialist?
| cube2222 wrote:
| This is not US-specific, you get the same thing (insurance on
| purchases, perks for spending money, credit rating) in the
| EU, just to a much smaller degree.
|
| Credit cards also have some benefits in the case of theft
| over debit cards, because of how they work.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I've lived in the USA my whole life, and I still think it's
| bizarre and ought to be illegal. It's basically a bribe.
|
| The worst part is, as long as it is legal, it just makes
| sense use it - because most things are the same price either
| way, so it's essentially a small discount on everything.
|
| So, I simultaneously use it regularly and hope it becomes
| illegal.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I definitely favor using CC, and paying off if only for the
| 2-5% "cash back" program(s). If I pay cash, I'm effectively
| paying extra, same for debit. It kind of sucks, and
| definitely should be better managed. Also, if you let the
| debt accumulate on a CC (very easy to do), then the
| interest definitely comes out to more than the rewards in
| that case.
| nfriedly wrote:
| Oh, yeah, CC companies love it when people carry a
| balance and pay interest.
|
| But they're still making money off of someone like me who
| pays the full balance off each month, because when they
| give me 2% back, they're charging the merchant 5% or
| more.
|
| It's kind of a heads-they-win, tails-you-loose situation.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| 5% processing fees are predatory, and the only people
| that pay them are mom and pop shops that don't have
| leverage. Larger merchants are going to be closer to
| ~1.5%.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Well, I know I'm getting 5% back on Amazon purchases, so
| there's some there, there so to speak.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Without some other changes to the system, like direct
| consumer banking and fraud protection through the fed,
| making points illegal would just be a big windfall for
| credit card companies, as they would remain the most
| convenient way to pay for things, while being able to keep
| like 2% more of what they charge merchants.
| callalex wrote:
| This is already a completely solved problem in most of
| the world. They simply cap the fees card companies can
| collect from merchants by law.
| sanderjd wrote:
| That sounds unlikely to me to be "solved" rather than "a
| different local maximum". I'm very skeptical that any
| governments know the single perfect solution to the
| formula of the precise level of merchant fees that is the
| best possible solution.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| If you cap fees, all that will happen is high risk
| businesses won't be able to accept cards and the
| processors will find ways to nickel and dime (+pos fee,
| paper billing fee, customer service fee, etc). It's still
| a better world though.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Maybe? For some people? I dunno, that sounds like it
| would mostly be worse for me, to have fewer points and
| fewer places that take cards. But even if it's better, it
| definitely doesn't seem "solved" to me... I think
| "solved" would be more like, fraud protection without
| credit, competition among card processing network driving
| merchant costs to access a network very low, people
| almost entirely using convenient fraud-protected debit
| cards like cash.
| nfriedly wrote:
| Yeah, you might be right. But I'd be less inclined to use
| a CC if I wasn't getting cash back, so they'd face more
| competition from debit cards, cash, etc. And, if they
| refused to lower their fees, I think some (more)
| merchants would just stop accepting credit cards.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I think essentially everyone would keep using their
| credit cards just as much, because debit cards are
| significantly riskier (to the consumer) from a fraud
| standpoint, and cash is significantly less convenient.
|
| Merchants can already stop accepting credit cards due to
| the fees. Why don't they? Because it would make their
| customers mad. Few businesses have customers who are more
| loyal to them than they are to their own (even minor)
| convenience. I do have a local restaurant I go to that
| doesn't accept credit cards and is packed nonetheless,
| but it's a rare feat. The points have a _little bit_ to
| do with this, but not nearly as much as the convenience.
|
| What _would_ change is that credit card companies would
| have more trouble luring people to switch away from their
| existing card to a new one. But they 'd have a huge
| amount of extra money to spend on advertising to make up
| for that.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| There's a liquor store near me that gives out a poker chip
| for every $25 you spend. You can trade 4 poker chips for a
| pint in their bar. Is this bad?
| mindslight wrote:
| You haven't taken into account the US ideal of a bifurcated
| society, and are probably imagining some singular credit card
| user archtype who relies on the credit and also benefits from
| the rewards. I personally am able to set my credit cards to
| autopay in full every month, so CC rewards are just a
| straightforward discount [0]. And I'd guess anybody that
| talks about rewards as prudent financial advice is in a
| similar boat. Whereas for the disempowered person who can
| only pay part of their balance, rewards are just another
| cognitive hazard to avoid being swayed by, lest they get
| milked even harder.
|
| As for the original topic, I personally hate seeing the echo
| of my spending in a monthly statement. It's like making the
| decision to buy everything twice, even for things that are
| straightforwardly necessary or prudent.
|
| [0] with the tradeoff of the transaction going in more
| surveillance databases and being solidly connected to my
| government-issued nym, of course
| kldavis4 wrote:
| Furthermore, everyone, regardless of whether they are using a
| credit card, is paying for this in the form of higher prices
| (unless the vendor has separate cash prices...)
| AlanSE wrote:
| Higher cash prices are a violation of the card-holder
| agreement.
| kldavis4 wrote:
| I think you mean the merchant agreement. There are many
| gas stations in the area where I live that have different
| cash prices and still take credit cards, so I'm not sure
| if this is still a thing. And honestly the fact that they
| would have that lends support to the fact that all of
| these credit card "benefits" are subsidized by cash
| payers.
| AlanSE wrote:
| Yes, I should have Googled that before using the wrong
| word.
|
| I am also operating on old information, perhaps the law
| changed and this it varies by state now.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| AFAIK, this changed in 2010 at a federal level.
| dspillett wrote:
| kldavis4 was meaning that everyone pays the same higher
| price to account for the fees present in card payment
| processing, regardless of whether they are paying in
| cash, be debit card, or by credit card.
|
| _> Higher cash prices are a violation of the card-holder
| agreement._
|
| I think what you are meaning is "higher _card_ prices are
| a violation of the _merchant_ agreement" - so a merchant
| can 't offer different prices for cash payments to
| account for differences in processing costs or they risk
| losing their merchant account with the card/payment
| processing company.
|
| In some places this is no longer legal1, you'd have to
| check your local legislation to know what applies in that
| regard where you are.
|
| Also the reverse, offering discounts for card use rather
| than cash2, is illegal in some places because it is
| unfair to those without cards4.
|
| --
|
| [1] so card processing companies can't (legally) punish
| merchants for offering a discount for cash
|
| [2] usually because the merchant gets a kick-back from
| the card payment processor, though sometimes these days
| it is because cash has become the minority payment
| method3 and vendors would rather only deal with one so
| want to further discourage cash
|
| [3] it is worth noting while discussing potential costs
| or kick-backs for card payment processing, that for
| businesses the act of dealing with cash has associated
| admin and/or costs too
|
| [4] which is disproportionately the disadvantaged,
| because they find it harder to qualify for any card, or
| can only qualify for one with a monthly charge that they
| can ill afford
| schnable wrote:
| This hasn't been true since Dodd-Frank in 2010:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durbin_amendment
|
| "included provisions which allow retailers to refuse to
| use credit cards for small purchases and offer incentives
| for using cash or another type of card."
| intrasight wrote:
| Some of my favorite restaurants give a 3% cash discount
| gruez wrote:
| > When I first moved to North America, the idea that a credit
| card company was allowed to give people cash back, offer
| insurance, etc. for using their cards seemed like some
| bizarroworld "how is this legal" concept. Having lived here
| for decades, it still is. It's like an alcohol shop rewarding
| its most alcoholic customers by giving them free booze.
|
| Should businesses not be allowed to offer perks to their
| customers in order to get an edge over their competitors?
| Your example involving an alcohol shop only seems weird
| because it involves an addictive substance. I doubt people
| would describe hotel or supermarket loyalty programs as some
| "bizarroworld "how is this legal" concept".
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Presumably the analogy is between an addictive substance
| (alcohol) and an addictive behavior (overspending on
| credit). Each can be used responsibly or not.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| I straight use credit cards as insurance, especially against
| scams.
|
| I specifically dont use a debit card at all and dont carry
| it. I only have it to pull money out and it stays locked in a
| safe at home.
|
| CC's allow me to ensure things like Amazon sellers arent
| scamming you, or worse, random websites with awful return
| policies. With a CC merchant that have a motivation to work
| on your behalf (ie: to get you to pay them for the charges).
|
| With a debit card that money is gone and its your
| responsibility to recoup it or convince your bank to credit
| you that money back..no thanks.
| marssaxman wrote:
| We all have different perceptions of risk, don't we? My
| approach is the opposite of yours - I carry my debit card
| everywhere, and use it for every non-cash purchase -
| because I am far more concerned about the everyday risk of
| getting into debt by spending more than I can afford than
| the relatively unlikely prospect of getting scammed.
|
| I did have to recoup stolen money once, but this was quick
| and straightforward since I am a member of a credit union.
| Leaving my debit card at home would not have helped, since
| the thief proved to be my ex-girlfriend!
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The big difference between the risk profile of a credit
| card vs a debit card is that if I willingly put myself in
| debt by spending more than I can afford, that was an
| action I chose to take. If my card details get stolen and
| someone racks up a bunch of charges, I had little to no
| input in that action. At most, I was too trusting with my
| choice in vendors.
|
| I'd rather control things within my control, e.g., my
| spending, than those outside my control, like thieves and
| scammers. So I use my credit card everywhere.
| croutonwagon wrote:
| We definitely do. And my intent wasnt to proselytize
| about it. More to just explain the reasoning.
|
| I have had fraud due to things outside of my control that
| took hundreds of hours and months to recover from. Some
| being from family of all things. But an Ebay/Paypal EFT
| with a previous bank (Suntrust) causing recurring
| overdrafts and a LOT of effort to get it to stop caused a
| lot of the afformentioned structure.
|
| We are both fairly stringent on spending, myself having
| had to crawl out of CC debt, so sticking to budget and
| keeping spending in check isnt so hard anymore. We
| definitely still have plenty of other safeguards as well.
|
| For example any loan we "reverse engineer" to design it
| to a specific payment that sets a budget limit. And for
| things like cars, we keep that loan to no more than
| $300/month. And once the car is paid off we continue
| putting that 300/month into a savings account for repairs
| and/or down payment on the next vehicle when repairs
| start to exceed the value of the vehicle.
|
| We also do the same for the kids college funds etc,.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Yes, with a debit card _in North America_ that is certainly
| true. Because banks are shit here.
| gruez wrote:
| Not really, because most banks have zero liability
| policies even though the law doesn't mandate it[1]. That
| said, the susceptibility to fraud is a fundamental
| problem with debit cards. When the card gets charged,
| it's your money that's taken out (or at least put on
| hold). On a credit card, it's the bank's money. That's an
| important difference, because even if you get reimbursed
| for it at the end, you're still without money during the
| time it takes for your bank to reimburse you. With a
| credit card you have a few weeks from when the statement
| is issued to pay.
|
| [1] https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/visa-chip-
| technology-cons...
| croutonwagon wrote:
| Thats exactly why we are structured that way. Especially
| for our primary accounts.
|
| Its also why we use 3 banks. So if for some reason 1 bank
| had some type of incident or the accounts do, we have 2
| other options with cash reserves. Though that has not
| happened to OUR accounts, we have had incidents at our
| banks (they just didnt affect our account balances)
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| > most banks have zero liability policies even though the
| law doesn't mandate it
|
| how is that "not really"? That's "yeah, because"
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Saying "banks are shit here because they have zero
| liability policies" isn't too sensical. Saying "banks are
| not really shit here because they have zero liability
| policies" makes decent sense.
| Symbiote wrote:
| (Under Danish laws...)
|
| I do the opposite: my main debit card is in my wallet, and
| is used for almost all purchases. Once it's done, I'm
| holding the groceries and my money is spent -- I don't
| think about it again.
|
| The credit card is at home, and also in my password
| manager. I use it for the riskier purchases, primarily
| airline tickets from non-EU airlines and small European
| budget airlines, and expensive concert tickets.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| When I pay with cash, all purchases are essentially rounded up to
| the Dollar, since I will literally never end up spending my
| change anywhere once it enters coin form.
| CaliforniaKarl wrote:
| I'm curious: Do you go grocery-shopping yourself? If yes, do
| you use a self-checkout option? And if yes, does it support
| paying with cash?
|
| In my case, the answer to all the above is "yes", and I found
| paying with cash is a good way of getting rid of the change
| that I've built up. Every self-checkout I've come across that
| supports cash will also support splitting payments, allowing me
| to pay the rest with credit card.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I started doing that a year or two ago. A self checkout won't
| get angry with you for pulling out a bunch of change and
| having to count it. And I'm usually shopping during off hours
| (~9 PM), so no one else is around to get annoyed either.
| brewdad wrote:
| While that's certainly an option, it would require both that
| I remember to grab my accumulated coins before leaving for
| the shop and that I spend extra time feeding them into the
| machine. These friction points will probably lead me to my
| current path of least resistance, tossing my coins into a
| container on my dresser and dealing with them about once a
| decade when it fills up.
| pests wrote:
| Self checkout machines around me have just a port you dump
| all the coins in at once and it counts them up.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| The time spent handling small coins is actually worth more
| than the coins themselves. If you value your free time
| somewhere in the ballpark of $80/hr, then you should spend no
| more than 2 seconds acquiring, maintaining possession of, and
| then spending, a nickel. IMO, that makes anything less than a
| quarter worthless.
| ketralnis wrote:
| Same, I take all of my coins to the grocery store and dump
| them in before finishing off whatever's left with my card. It
| takes some time to get the machine to take them all so I
| don't do it if there's a queue behind me but otherwise it's
| great for quickly getting rid of the coins without them just
| vanishing into the aether.
|
| I also have a corner store that loves to get my coins. I
| suspect he has to make awkward change more often than a big-
| box store does because when I pull out my $3 in quarters
| before breaking out the paper bills he always thanks me for
| it
| [deleted]
| hooverd wrote:
| Obviously you pay cash so it doesn't affect your social credit
| score.
|
| I always pay cash at the bar- it's an easy way to realize you're
| spending too much compared to just opening a tab. Plus you don't
| get stuck closing out if you wait too long.
| jjice wrote:
| Agreed. It's a good way to create a hard limit. It's also just
| a lot faster in a setting like that and I can just hand them
| the cash with tip included and leave, hard capping the drinks
| for the benefit of my wallet and my health.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Basically correct. People do this to avoid detection from
| surveillance. Including, for some, their spouse.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| "social credit score"?
| hooverd wrote:
| Ok, I live in the US, we don't have one of those. We do have
| a bunch of companies, insurers and otherwise, that want to
| assign some sort of risk score to you. Credit card companies
| will happily part way with transaction data.
|
| *If you're wondering: I have a credit card. I don't really
| care if some data broker knows that I bought pants or paid my
| water bill.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| In Europe, all electronic transactions are shared between
| at least a dozen unclear public-private entities.
|
| I am not aware of a "social credit score" around these
| parts, but I do not have cards and I do very strictly care
| that privacy remains respected.
| adastra22 wrote:
| [flagged]
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The poster wrote <<of course>> (taking something for
| granted) and <<you>>, suggesting an universal context,
| valid for "everyone". Not just places in which the practice
| is established.
| [deleted]
| Larrikin wrote:
| Or just pay as you go with your credit card as there really is
| no upside to opening a tab or paying in cash if you have a
| credit card. If the bar is so busy that you think you're saving
| time by paying in cash, you're wasting that time else where by
| going to the ATM and making sure you have the right collection
| of bills to pay in exact change. If you're getting change even
| once then you're making the server spend even longer on the
| return trip to you by having to get the exact bills and change
| needed for you, instead of tapping your card. You also don't
| get the credit card rewards, which for someone with a good mix
| of cards is easily thousands of dollars at the end of the year
| added up over all the transactions. Bars and restaurants are
| established high reward categories.
|
| $20 to $50 in my wallet usually lasts me a month or more at
| this point. There are a few well established bars and
| restaurants that force the burden on the customer by not
| accepting cards, but they nearly always have an on-site ATM.
| Many of them that are not outright amazing and lived on by
| their reputation from their longevity have started taking
| cards. Nobody would even dream of opening a new place that was
| cash only.
| hooverd wrote:
| I keep a good mix of ones, fives, and tens. I also use a
| credit card for most expenses.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I also use a CC for most expenses, but besides small bills,
| I like to have a handful of large bills (1 or 2 hundreds, a
| fifty, a handful of twenties) because large bills are a
| great way to ask for favors. Nobody's going to remember a
| 10 you hand them, but a 20 is going to stay in their head.
| A fifty or hundred is going to sit in their wallet, and be
| a recurring reminder. My rule of thumb is that asking
| someone to commit to doing something they probably would
| have done for free is a twenty, asking someone to bend the
| rules a bit through inaction is a fifty, and asking someone
| to act in my favor in exception to the rules is a hundred.
| brewdad wrote:
| I use cash so rarely that I end up at the bar (or wherever)
| with a stack of 20s.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| At bars, I'll open a tab with a card, then tip on the first
| round with cash. Then at the end of the night I'll tip for
| subsequent rounds on the card. I don't want to do a bunch of
| scribbling on a receipt after each order, and I want to
| establish that I'm willing to tip well early to get quicker
| service. It's definitely the ideal solution.
| treprinum wrote:
| Ugh, why is this an academic paper? Isn't that super obvious?
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Things that are "super obvious" aren't always true.
| abtinf wrote:
| [flagged]
| Animats wrote:
| I'm more into how likely it is someone will run up an extra
| charge on my card, or how much of a pain their POS system is.
| (Can it split checks? Do I have to sign on a touch screen with my
| fingernail? Is performance so bad it acts like the credit card
| terminal is on dialup and the line is in use? Encountered all
| three of those in the last month.)
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > But more detailed record-keeping may undermine financial apps'
| usefulness. "If people know that there's going to be a record
| every time they use Apple Pay, based on our theory, people
| actually will use it less compared to if Apple Pay doesn't
| automatically track and record and remind them in the statement."
|
| This is so weird to me since I want to know how much I spend in
| any category. I'm annoyed only one of my linked Apple Pay cards
| reports transactions off Apple Pay (my AmEx).
|
| The study specifically says it looked only at cases where "the
| payment method hadn't been decided beforehand" but that strikes
| me as really weird. Everyone I know knows how they're going to
| pay for a purchase before they walk into a store, mostly because
| walking into a store has become so intentional. You are either
| carrying (sufficient) cash on you or not. You either have enough
| credit on your card or not. And, honestly, for most people in the
| USA of my generation (so-called "millennials") if there's any
| thinking involved it might be "which card do I charge this to"
| and not "cash or credit?"
|
| Also as with other studies making claims like these I immediately
| wonder about reproducibility.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > This is so weird to me since I want to know how much I spend
| in any category.
|
| So do I -- I would just prefer that Apple (or insert any other
| company in their place) didn't have access to that information.
| I can keep track of my own spending, I don't need a company to
| do it for me.
| GravelRocks wrote:
| I assure you there are people that haven't decided how to pay
| for something before they reach the register. There's also a
| lot of people that will decide how to pay for something based
| on how much the purchase is at the register. Both of those
| examples are anecdotal, and come from working a register some
| decade and a half ago. Anecdotally, I bring cash with me when I
| go on vacation. I never really thought about it so much as
| guilt, but you could probably characterize it somewhat as that.
| It's at least done partially for budgetary reasons, but I'm
| sure subconsciously I really don't want to remember spending
| $80 at the Tiki bar.
|
| As for the reproducibility it looks like, from the article,
| that they at least constructed several simular studies to test
| their theory:
|
| 1. "In one study, the authors analyzed more than 118,000 real-
| world purchases at the Stanford University Bookstore."
|
| 2. "Another study asked participants to imagine buying a
| 30-minute reiki session. Half read that the session was
| recommended by their doctor and would be at a hospital..."
|
| 3. "Another study explored shoppers' preference for untraceable
| payment methods besides cash. Half the participants were
| informed they had a $20 bill and a debit card linked to their
| bank account; the other half were told they had a $20 bill and
| a prepaid debit card."
|
| It's at least not a single, "3 grad students did this in an
| afternoon at the 7-11" study that tend to get picked up. I
| don't doubt that more research into the phenomenon might help
| get a better understanding of the underlying motivations for
| "cash/credit", but it does look like they are getting similar
| results from multiple experiments.
| pitterpatter wrote:
| This sorta meshes with how I tend to think of cash. I essentially
| consider withdrawn cash as already "spent" the moment it leaves
| my account. So when I do get around to spending that cash
| (especially on something frivolous) there's less of a hangup over
| it.
| bamfly wrote:
| Same--though I _didn 't_ used to do that back when 1) I had a
| whole lot less money, and 2) I used cash way more often.
|
| Now, if I have cash, it's almost always because I intend to
| spend it, usually for some purpose or activity or over some
| time period. It's not going back in the bank. Any left over or
| if plans change, I'll just spend it on whatever. It's "already
| spent". If it leaves the bank account, it's gone.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Necessary caveat on the current state of irreproducibility and
| outright fraud in Behavioural economics. See, for example, the
| thread a few days back about Dan Ariely:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684242
| bern4444 wrote:
| I've always thought the opposite.
|
| When I pay for something with cash I remember it far more
| strongly than when I pay with card. I pay with a card all the
| time and the action is the same no matter the price. I tap it and
| move on.
|
| With cash I remember having to go get the cash, counting out the
| right amount at the register, and physically handing it over. And
| then I notice its absence since now I gave up all the cash I had
| and need to go to the ATM again. I see and feel the loss more
| strongly.
|
| You actually lose something physical when you pay with cash
| unlike with a card. Especially if its a large purchase, I feel
| the cash loss harder and remember it longer - hard to forget
| handing over several bills ($50+) for those expensive
| transactions.
| SN76477 wrote:
| Yes. Some experiences need friction. For example I do not
| automate any bills. Each of them are paid manually (with a few
| exceptions like subscription services)
|
| I want to see, feel, know and understand what is happening
| behind the curtain when it comes to my hard earned assets.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'll say this, spending cash is harder _in the moment_. There
| 's a real visceral feeling of loss when handing over actual
| cash vs card.
|
| However, when it comes to tracking long term? Cash always
| seemed to just ...evaporate, out of my wallet where as I can
| look back and see my credit card purchases and go 'why did I
| spend that much on that?!'
|
| In my experience, there are two types of people when it comes
| to money. There are spenders, who could usually stand to cut
| back, and savers, who could stand to loosen up. I'm definitely
| in the 'could stand to loosen up' camp. I even went so far a
| set aside a 'fun money' budget but it mostly goes unspent
| because my frugality has no chill...
| gochi wrote:
| Conscious spending could help out both camps. Spenders tend
| to spend too much on things that don't matter to them, and
| savers spend too little on things that matter to them.
|
| The problem is conscious spending requires more initial setup
| that a lot of people don't want to do. They don't want to
| look at their bills and tally up the monthly total,
| automating that to be paid first, and then looking at their
| savings/investing/donation goals and taxes/limitations and
| dedicating certain amounts next per month. That's all too
| much initial work for them, but once you're on the other side
| it's glorious. I see how much is in my spending account, and
| spend it freely if whatever it is matters to me more than
| just the thrill of spending.
|
| So many are just not honest with themselves and what actually
| matters to them. They have a huge house not because it makes
| them happy but because it's what they feel pressured to have.
| But this is a trick, remaining in this state winds up burning
| you out so much faster because you are not nourishing what
| your soul wants. What they actually would rather be doing is
| travelling the world, and yet they only put aside 1% monthly
| to a travel fund, and 70% goes to a home they don't care
| about. They wind up never travelling because they distract
| themselves with irrelevant things, get burned out at their
| job, feel like moving cities, etc. It happens all the time!
|
| To make this clear, this isn't about downsizing. If a big
| home does matter to you, that should obviously take a much
| larger portion of your monthly bills. But you can't make
| these decisions without going through that above work
| honestly.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is it exactly - if I spend $2k on an item, I'm going to
| remember that if it was cash or card, but only card tells me
| "you spend $2k last month at Walmart".
| em-bee wrote:
| so the benefit is that paying by card makes tracking your
| expenses easier.
|
| but the downside is that it also makes makes profiling
| easier for anyone who can get access to your bank
| statements which not only includes the bank but more
| critically also walmart or any other place where you shop
| regularly.
|
| i rather track my spending manually. there are tools that
| can help with that too, like receipt scanners. granted,
| it's more work, so one needs to weigh the options. for me
| though, supermarkets are the last place that i want to be
| able to track my shopping because most of it happens there.
| majormajor wrote:
| We can't be that far from the facial recognition in
| stores/at registers building that same profile for cash
| customers :(
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| It's still socially acceptable to wear a face mask in
| public
| em-bee wrote:
| not everywhere. at least some european countries and
| aparently some places in the US too ban the wearing of
| facemasks, some only on large public assemblies and some
| ban it in general. covid of course made mockery of those
| laws.
| em-bee wrote:
| true, but laws making that illegal are also being
| considered at least in some places, which means awareness
| of the dangers does exist
| lazide wrote:
| The challenge of course, is it's easy to lose or misplace
| receipts, etc.
|
| Some of us have issues with (essentially) self sabotage
| that way. Some of us have also had issues with people in
| our lives not so accidentally sabotaging (or stealing)
| things that way. Come to think of it, I don't know any
| long term married couples that didn't have one of the two
| do SOMETHING like that at some point.
|
| The nice thing (or terrible, if you're worried about
| privacy) about credit cards is you can go back as long as
| you need and figure out what money went where, from whom.
|
| When cash is gone, it's gone. If someone has to provide
| receipts/prove expenses to get more, that can be managed.
| If someone can just pull it out, less so.
|
| Pros and cons either way, of course.
| em-bee wrote:
| well, it depends on how you look at it, no matter how
| much you deceive yourself (or your partner), in the end
| it only matters if you spend above or below your means.
| if you spent to much it doesn't really matter where the
| money went in the past, you need to fix the spending in
| the future. finding who or what to blame is only half the
| problem. either you both agree to manage finances or you
| don't. if you can, put some money aside in a locked
| savings account that noone can touch. (i had a special
| savings account that would only generate interest as long
| as i didn't touch it, but kept paying into it regularly).
| that's a good way to prevent money from disappearing.
| lazide wrote:
| Ah, sweet summer child. The problem cases almost always
| agree to manage finances together and be reasonable!
|
| The money still disappears.
|
| No records just makes it easier to be gaslit, or blamed
| by the actual perpetrator in a court of law.
|
| At least when it's recorded by a third party it's harder
| to bullshit about. Two separate friends of mine had their
| spouses (when under stress) nearly bankrupt both of them
| using credit cards they signed up for without their
| knowledge.
|
| They found them on their credit reports due to something
| unrelated, and at least was able to track down what had
| happened. Both wives had been shredding the statements.
| One had racked up $80k, another $70k.
|
| Personally, I had a large and very vague amount of cash
| disappear (approx $10k) through likely fake expenses just
| before getting hit with a bunch of false accusations -
| when I tried to get away from an abusive ex.
|
| The legal chaos she created meant I never could get an
| answer what happened. And frankly was a drop in the
| bucket compared to the other damage she did.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| I definitely feel the "frugality has no chill" attitude. I
| describe it, charitably, as being an extremely content
| person. The downside is that there are plenty of things that
| I could point at that would make my life somewhat better (
| replacing my 30 year old Honda with a Tesla or something
| would definitely save me time on maintenance, for example).
| The upside is that when something does pass my high bar of
| "willing to spend money on it", I rarely have to worry about
| being able to afford it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how old are you? I'm in my thirties and think
| the same.
| Etheryte wrote:
| I don't think it's tied that much to age, but rather local
| culture. For example this mindset is prevalent in Germany and
| Switzerland to the point where many locals look at you weird
| when you ask them why they prefer cash. (There are other
| historical reasons here too, but that doesn't take away from
| the main point.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _when you ask them why they prefer cash_
|
| Would they also say they spend cash more loosely than card?
| That's the phenomenon being described, not absolute
| preference.
| Etheryte wrote:
| In the conversations I've had with people from Germany
| and Switzerland it's the other way around, with cash
| they're more aware and thus more frugal with their
| spending.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Right. That's what the article says. OP described an
| opposite reaction which I share. The hypothesis of local
| culture doesn't work because the cultures you named align
| with the paper, which seems to be the default tendency
| worldwide.
| theodric wrote:
| Ehh... Ok so right at the beginning of the Ukraine War I went
| and pulled EUR9000 out of the bank (don't have to declare under
| EUR10k at Customs) and put it in an envelope labeled "SHTF" and
| stuck it on the pinboard. The envelope recently became empty. I
| can't exactly tell you what we spent it on. Not "guilty
| pleasures," of that I'm reasonably sure, but probably some shit
| we could have lived without except hey there's this mad crazy
| money envelope, sure why not grab a couple hundo and splurge...
| tracker1 wrote:
| That was my take as well... when I was younger and paid for
| nearly everything in cash... I'd literally see the amount in my
| wallet go down, and have to think twice on everything. I was so
| much more aware of the fuel I was buying, how much I would or
| wouldn't spend eating out, grocery shopping etc. Now it feels
| like sticker shock each month when I pay everything off... "how
| did I spend that much." I think the article makes a lot of
| conclusions that my own experience would indicate the opposite.
| thingification wrote:
| I wonder if part of this is a function of time passing /
| getting older rather than purely cash vs not.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I can't speak for all, but I came from a lower/lower-middle
| income family... when I was in my later teens, I generally
| didn't hold a lot of money to trust in debit purchases not
| overdrawing. Didn't even have a CC until I was nearly 30yo.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I'm from Norway, where cash is rare these days. But I feel
| similar, it's a lot more obvious how much you pay when you need
| to count bills and hand them over.
|
| As a compromise I only keep a small amount of money on my debit
| card. That way I have to keep topping it up, so I get a sense
| of my spending that way.
| matsemann wrote:
| Also from Norway. Haven't paid cash in ~10 years. I have no
| idea how the new currency looks like. I lost my wallet at
| some point, and just never replaced it. I pay with my Garmin
| watch (or phone once in a while). My driver's license is an
| app.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| you have a "high trust" and "wealthy" country -- good for
| you. Not everyone lives like that.
|
| Here in the USA, tracking people for profit has exploded,
| and the benefit is not for the person being tracked.
|
| I advocate cash for old reasons, and new reasons. Use high-
| tech payments if you like -- do not think they can be
| mandatory here in the USA.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > do not think they can be mandatory here in the USA.
|
| I sure hope not, but there's been quite a lot of things
| that have been on the "could never happen here" list that
| have in fact happened. I have no faith that eliminating
| cash is inconceivable.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I keep two accounts for my payroll deposits... one which is
| my day to day usage (fuel, food, entertainment, etc) and the
| other where bills get paid from. I also keep my large bills
| and credit cards not autopay. So I have to actually go in at
| least once a month to pay the mortgage, car payments, and pay
| off CC. It helps for awareness, but not actively tracking
| sometimes makes it surprising how much gets spent in a month.
| sokoloff wrote:
| As part of teaching our kids about money, I insisted on not
| only using physical currency for items the kids decided to
| purchase with "their own money", but on ringing them up in a
| separate transaction and having my kid actually hand over the
| currency and receive the change and the item. (This doesn't
| work for online purchasing, of course, but anything in store,
| we'd do this way.)
| pc86 wrote:
| The point is that once your memory fades, that's it. Unless you
| took a receipt, kept it, don't lose it, AND have a reason to
| look at it, the purchase will essentially have never happened.
| If it's on a card it's on that statement forever.
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