Does your choice depends on somehing? And from what country are you?
Norway.
The only ones using cash here are the elderly, immigrant workers and contractors that skip VAT. Been like that a long time. A restaurant chain here stopped accepting cash (illegal), and there was barely some buzz in the media. Buzz so brief I don’t know how it ended.
I almost never have cash on me. It’s debit or credit always. Here’s my thought process on paying with cash. If I buy something that costs, say $4.55, and I hand over a $5 dollar bill, that item has really just cost me $5.00 because what am I realistically going to do with the 45 cents in change?
Back in the day you take that .45 cents and throw it in a big old empty pickle jar with the rest of your loose change.
the problem now is that I’ll just have a big pickle jar with 45 cents. Next year, I’ll have a pickle jar with 60 cents… maybe by the time I retire I’ll have a whole five dollars of change and exchange it for a bill…
Sure. At the current rate. But it’s likely that if you use cash more often then your pickle jar fills up sooner.
I put my change in a jar when I empty my pockets. About once a year I’ll take it by the bank and treat myself with the couple hundred dollars it cashes out to.
Are you just throwing yours away?
I’ve got a jar too, but it definitely doesn’t fill up at anywhere near the rate yours does. My pay is direct deposited and every place I shop will take a card. I could either go to the ATM to get cash, use it to pay for things when I don’t have to, collect these small amounts of change, and take it all back to the bank eventually, or I could just not bother with any of these things.
I’ve had like ~70 cents sitting on the shelf for over a year… like, what an I going to do with it? It’s just a pointless pile of coins. half the time those coins are in the wrong combination to pay for whatever other change in my next cash transaction, so I just end up with more coins… which I have to remember to grab when I’m specifically going to a cash-only place…
All of the sub-$1 coins that I have ever received as change in my lifetime would not add up to $100. But I also don’t use (or even carry) cash unless I absolutely must.
Edit to add: I have a jar too. It’s a standard mason jar. I started filling this one after my last move. In 2013.
I have yet to fill it completely.
Credit card for the rewards, paid monthly. Keep cash for tipping and small stuff.
US: Credit card only, almost exclusively using Apple Pay. If I somehow obtain cash, I deposit it so that I can spend it using a card instead and earn the rewards. I actively use about half a dozen cards, choosing the right one for each transaction to maximize rewards.
While its solid you’re into the efficiency of it all, as an outsider it seems like an added headache to remember which card would be best for which outlet / type of transaction. I personally just maintain a few cards and only switch once I’ve reached about 50-60% the limit.
I can’t even remember the last time I had cash in my wallet
