Yesterday at the weekly networking meeting, I sat next to one of the younger members. Every week we have a drawing: we all put in a dollar and take a ticket. If your number is picked, you get the pot.
All I had was four quarters (one of them turned out to be a 100 yen piece…), which I tossed into the basket. The young man next to me abstained, saying he had no cash. I remarked that I never carry cash, and he said he didn’t, either.
If I don’t win the pot (which I didn’t) I will have no cash for the next week, unless I go out to lunch with a friend, put both meals on my credit card, and get the friend to reimburse me in dollars. He said that was true for him, too.
LOL! I was surprised to run into a young person who doesn’t haunt ATMs. I refuse to use the things, largely because I don’t care to pay for the privilege of taking my money out of the bank.
But the real reason for this odd habit is that cash sifts through my fingers like sand. Back when I did use ATMs, I’d take $50 out in the morning and by evening it would be gone! And I would have no idea where it had gone. It would just disappear.
Having to go to the trouble of taking out a credit card (breaking a fingernail in the process), swiping, and signing is just aversive enough to make me think twice about purchases. Buying in cash is just too, too easy, I guess.
So, for me, not carrying cash is a frugal habit.
Well…there’s also a bit of self-defense there. The ATM I used to habituate was located behind a sky-scraping bank building, facing an open multi-story parking structure. Often I would go there after hours and on the weekends, when there was no one around. It wasn’t all that long after ATMs were introduced, and people were only just beginning to realize that when you went up to an ATM and took out money, you made yourself an obvious mark for muggers. It occurred to me that anyone could stand inside that parking garage, watch for people to drive up, and then approach you from behind as you focused on trying to make the machine work.
So I quit doing that.
My friends and son think I’m nuts for not having cash on me at all times. What seems to me to be a “frugal habit” strikes them as a “strange habit.”
What strange little money habits do you indulge?
Just general cheap-itude. I don’t carry cash either–just use credit card for everything.
I carry a minimum amount of cash, but do use my debit card a lot. So far none of the places I use it charge a fee, and as I’m able to get extra cash at most stores when I use it, or use a drive-through ATM at the bank, I don’t feel I’m putting myself at risk when I do need cash.
The one thing I don’t do any more is carry my checkbook with me in my purse. I have a couple of bills I still have to pay by check but rarely write more than 3 or 4 a month, so the checkbook stays in the desk drawer.
If I don’t carry cash for everything, I spend beyond my means, so I’m the very opposite! It’s hard for me to part with the cash knowing it’s what I have for the week. But the card? I could slide that thing regularly and think “It’s just $5/$8/$12…there will be more there….”.
I have only one credit card and I almost never carry it with me. I found out I spend more if I have the credit card with me.
I don’t like ATMs, either; I feel like a target. I just get cash back from shopping at the drugstore or the Asian market near my apartment.
One budgeting expert I interviewed says he has clients get cash in an envelope and every time they use some of it they must write the expenditures on the back of the envelope. This is for folks who, like you, can spend the money but not remember *how* they spent it.
@ Donna Freedman: Merry Christmas! What are you doing online on Xmas Day? :-O
That would be a good way of keeping track of flying dollars. Actually, at one point I tried carrying a check register around to enter cash expenditures. But it was such a nuisance and made me feel like such an idiot in public, that scheme didn’t last long!
I couldn’t get through a day let alone a week without at least a small amount of cash. I always use cash for small purchases(ie milk,bread etc) and a debit/credit card for larger purchases (ie supermarket). Hardly a week goes by in work without some sort of ‘collection’, raffle, social fund, gift etc. I would be embarassed if I did not have the cash to contribute.
Oh, and I always make sure to have singles and change when I go out on errands. Since I’m on foot I usually run into a person with a help-needed sign. Favorite one recently: “Homeless, hungry, hoping.” I bought him a sandwich.
I have the hardest time saving spare change because I so rarely carry cash! When I pay by card, it’s quicker and cleaner — I can keep account of my expenses more easily online, get refunded more easily if my wallet is stolen, and budget just as well. Same principle applies to public transit — it goes on the Clipper card and I don’t have to hunt for cash when I’m running late. And I don’t forget my debit card in the pocket of my jeans! (Well, hardly ever.) Paying cash isn’t a frugal habit for me, because I never keep track of the stuff.
I buy a meal occasionally for a homeless person, but I use my card. To panhandlers, I can honestly say, “Sorry, I don’t have any change” (and sometimes offer leftovers/a doggie bag I’m carrying instead). It’s those very few places (around me) that are cash-only — usually nail salons and some cash-only tips at spa services, oh, and the farmers’ market — that drive me nuts with anxiety… ’cause NOW I have to find an ATM!!
I’m really dubious about giving cash to panhandlers. When I was teaching f/t on GDU’s low-income West campus, a police officer registered for one of my upper-division business writing courses. She said that you should never give cash to those folks, because almost 100% of them use the money to buy more drugs or alcohol.
And then a friend of mine was on his way home from grocery shopping when he saw a guy panhandling on a corner with a sign that said “Will Work for Food.” He stopped at the light and handed a bag of groceries out to the panhandler. As the light changed and he drove away, he saw the guy in the rear-view mirror dumping the food in the gutter.
Kinda lent credibility to the cop’s initially cynical-sounding advice.
Another character I saw used to stand on a corner with a sign that said “Need $15 to Pay the Rent.” I watched a guy hand him a $20 bill out the car window.
Think of that. Six $10 bills in an hour would be about the max I can earn in my editorial business. Five $20 bills would pay the guy $100 an hour, almost twice what I can earn. You could buy a lot of meth or snort a lot of coke for $100 an hour… Once again, I’m in the wrong line of business!
I am with you! I NEVER carry cash. Since I don’t have fingernails to break I think it also has to do with little purchases. For example if I have cash on me stopping at starbucks seems like a no-brainer but without cash it just seems dumb to go in and buy a coffee just to charge 3 bucks.
What strange little money habits do you indulge?
– I return bottles…do I get real money out of it? NOPE actually the time plus the driving probably is a negative return but I like doing it and seems like a waste of money to just let the town take it away for free lol
– I will drive and wait on line for cheaper gas