Generally just curious how often people on here in the UK tend to use it. Personally I use it 95% of the time due to privacy concerns, easier budgeting & wanting to maintain its use. Most people my age (early to mid 20s) seem to find the concept alien & I've noticed younger cashiers are absolutely garbage at calculating change mentally.

Very very rarely, and I generally actively avoid it. There's only really my barbers that I occasionally use it for as their card payments seem to be intermittent.

I find cash impractical: it often gets lost when it gets converted into change, or notes get put in a pocket and forgotten about, and it's difficult to track where it's being spent, where you can break down each electronic transaction.

Yeah, try to use it where possible

Not very often. Bank notes are little more than illegal drug purchase vouchers these days.

Honestly, never. I've never struggled with budgeting and all I really buy in real life is coffee and food if on the go, and they all seem to be cashless these days. I get the privacy concerns but have to balance it with just trying to live life.

Nearly 43.

Never liked using cash, its always just been a massive pain in the arse. If I pick up lunch for team mates it really annoys me when they hand me over £4.35 in loose change.

(32M) Since COVID I only used it for the barbers. I found a good Turkish one that takes bank transfers now though, so never.

I do have emergency money in my bike toolkit though just in case.

I definitely prefer my card wherever possible. Just tap it on the card reader and you're done. No change jangling around in your pocket. And you can see all your transactions in your banking app later on to see exactly where you've spent money. I want cash to stick around though because some people don't like using cards.

I’ve not used it in over 20 years, and I don’t miss it.

I still use it for the same reasons you mentioned. Also small businesses since they don't have to deal with card processing fees then (generally ask what they prefer) plus "other accounting measures".

I dunno about that, bought a entire car with them recently.

Sounds like me being one of the arseholes handing over 15p in coppers lol

Must admit if a establishment is cashless I actively go out of my way to avoid them, mostly out of bloody mindedness.

Aye but when you find the note again its a bonus tenner or a twenty ; )

Based

Where do you live out of interest? I can't help but feel some covid so many businesses moved away from cash.

I want to say I use cash and defend it. I hate that every transaction is now passing through a US company, taking a slice, when I'm paying a local shop...

But.. it's just so easy to use plastic.

And that's the point, it's like saying to anyone with any kind of substance issues to just not use the stuff, it's so hard to give it up...

Which is why I want to use cash, but, apart from tax-efficient takeaways and car parking... I don't think I use cash

Fully understand, although I must admit I never used primarily card as I was brought up by a boomer and all my first ""jobs"" were cash in hand! (although a £50 note & 2 bags of logs for a days labour at 13 was very very good). If you want to get into it just take out 100 for the week and spend only that, the change (including coppers) is free pint money!/cafe money if you don't drink.

Grew up in a extremely rural area which likely had something to do with it, currently live in a small city & have continued the habit.

I live in outer London so think it is a regional thing. The local cafes and some shops will want cash but anywhere on a high street seems to be only card, even outside lunch places have moved.

I you have to take card (because so many people expect it here and are completely cashless) then it is more expensive for a business to take cash as you need to reconcile it daily, hold it securely, arrange to have enough change, get charged to pay it in to the bank and it takes more manual accounting work.

On the other side, people genuinely hate carrying around wallets so have actively moved everything onto their phones.

I use card for most of my transactions, but in cornershops, independent shops or smaller businesses i usually ask what they prefer. It's not always cash! sometimes they prefer card as it's easier for them to handle.

Interesting what you say about people your age, I've noticed actually that children/teenagers tend to use cash because they don't have a bank account or any income to put in a bank account, but then when they get to 18+ they start using card more.

If you were up to anything on the dl it’d be way less sus to have a current account full of the normal behaviour of a perfectly normal citizen, and do your black economy stuff in cash. Sort of how getting into the US is going to be a lot harder if you say “ackshually I’m on something called Lemmy” vs if you have an x.com where you occasionally post stuff like “all hail the eternal god emperor, he will make the West strong again!” and “This is fine”.

They prefer cash to evade taxes, same as small contractors.

In the US, if police find large quantities of cash on you, they can declare you a drug dealer, with no evidence, and no charges, and take the money under civil forfeiture.

Many have had all their money stolen by police because they were moving or they were on the way to buy a car. Shithole country.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/police-seized-marine-vets-life-savings-ruling-brings-closer-saving-others-from-civil-forfeiture

What do police do with the seized money? Margarita machines.

https://www.riaclu.org/news/margarita-machines-zamboni-and-no-due-process/

Handling cash costs about as much as handling card transactions. It always annoyed me when I was working at conventions and people would assume that my business was better off with cash. Cash was a huge pain in the arse.

Good on you for asking! I hated having to deal with cash as a small business.

Basically never. The occasional car boot sale. That's about it. Any cash I receive ends up sitting on a shelf as my wallet doesn't have a space for it. The notion of relying on cash for budgeting makes no sense to me.

I'm not looking to get rid of cash, but it has no use case for me.
Even the local teenager that mows my lawn takes bank transfers!

In terms of budgeting its fairly simple, I take out £100 to take around with me and generally leave the cards at home. Thusly I can only spend that 100 quid.

I think I'd call that limiting spending rather than budgeting. Budgeting would involve keeping track of how much is spent on different things, projecting future spending, stuff like that.

Not really, take the 100 out then divide known expenses you'll be using it for, shopping, petrol the usual and anything left over is fun money for the week.

That isn't how I approach budgeting at all, so it explains why I don't get it. I'm glad you have a system that works for you.
The downvote suggest you'd rather I stop talking though so I'll leave it there.