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The end of cash?

I'm at a campsite in North Yorkshire and when we arrived and went to pay the balance I was somewhat surprised they only took cash. It's not a farmers field with a few tents, it's a proper setup with lodges and stuff as well. Now what they do between them and the inland revenue is their business, but as it's so unusual these days I'd make it very clear in the emails they send before you arrive.
 
From today's Guardian

There has been an unexpected jump in the number of people who mainly use notes and coins for their daily spending, despite the UK moving closer to becoming a cashless society, a report has found.

The volume of contactless and mobile payments increased last year, while the number of cash payments resumed a downward trajectory after enjoying a brief comeback in 2022, the banking body UK Finance noted in its annual report on the UK payments market.


However, there was a 66% increase in the number of people who prefer to use cash for their everyday spending.

The estimated number of “mainly use cash” people has fallen every year for several years and stood at 900,000 in 2022, but it leapt to 1.5 million last year – the highest figure since before the coronavirus pandemic.

UK Finance said the increase may reflect those people who have gone back to using cash to help manage their finances during the cost of living crisis.

Last year there was a rise in interest in a budgeting trend called “cash stuffing” – or the cash envelope system – made popular on social media. This involves dividing cash into envelopes labelled into different categories such as groceries, bills, a rainy day and Christmas shopping. The idea is that it helps cash-strapped households keep track of their spending and saving.

A UK Finance spokesperson said it would monitor the situation regarding people who mainly used cash to see if this was the start of a trend or merely a “statistical blip”.


People on lower incomes were more likely to favour notes and coins, but the cohort also includes well-off individuals, the spokesperson said. A lot of it “is personality-driven”, and those in this category were relatively evenly spread across all age groups, they added.

These people are not necessarily ideologically opposed to banks or worried about privacy: UK Finance said most of them had debit or credit cards, and many paid their regular household bills using direct debits or standing orders.

While the core of people who mainly use cash has increased, so, too, has the number of people who live “largely cashless lives” – defined as either using no notes or coins at all, or using them only about once a month. The number of people in this category nudged up to 22.1 million in 2023.
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emanymton said:
I'm not sure I get the "cash stuffing", surely the vast majority of regular bills are not paid in cash for most people?
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You can take cash out and leave the money for those bills in your account, and if you use direct debit for those you can consider them "paid". You can then take the cash and distribute it in envelopes for what you need for the rest of the month, eg four envelopes for each week of food shopping. Some banks offer a kind of virtual version of this, Monzo has pots, Starling has spaces.
 
liquidindian said:
You can take cash out and leave the money for those bills in your account, and if you use direct debit for those you can consider them "paid". You can then take the cash and distribute it in envelopes for what you need for the rest of the month, eg four envelopes for each week of food shopping. Some banks offer a kind of virtual version of this, Monzo has pots, Starling has spaces.
Click to expand...
But that's not what the article says, it specifically says things like bills and rainy day money on top of weekly spending money.

Taking out x amount each week because that is what your budget it I get, but not then other things listed, that would be best left in the account.

I could maybe see splitting your weeks budget into things like food, kids lunch money or whatever but that's not what the article says. Is it just the Guardian being shit, it's probably that.
 
hash tag said:
Saw that. Apparently people are resorting to "cash stuffing" to help with budgeting.
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In NZ we don't need to do that as it's really easy to create endless sub accounts on our banking apps, I'm not poor but I have a holiday account, a daily spend account, a going out on Saturday account etc. it's a great budgeting tool for everyone but if I had to do it the analogue way I'd be fucked, envelopes all over the place.
 
hash tag said:
"banking apps" as in plural. I don't have a single banking app.
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Well I have one with my main bank and then one from the bank I have a home loan with, but I meant apps because all the banks do them and they're super easy to use. I don't visit a bank ( did a Zoom call to get the home loan) or receive anything printed in the mail or ever log in to internet banking, it's all through the apps.

Even my credit card would be digital only on my phone if it wasn't for the fact I travel to Samoa and Tonga a bit and theyre not quite there yet.
 
PR1Berske said:
www.theguardian.com

Global IT outage shows dangers of cashless society, campaigners say

Cash provides essential fallback when digital payments break down, Payment Choice Alliance points out
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
Click to expand...

Ron Delnevo, the founder and chairman of the Payment Choice Alliance seems to have a lot of businesses related to card machines and ATMs. funny that.

Ronald Joseph DELNEVO personal appointments - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
 
brogdale said:
Took particular pleasure, this afternoon, in paying for my courgnana at the scab till in brown coins only. Enjoy it while you can.
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Apparently it's not that they're being phased out, there are just loads sitting in warehouses because fewer and fewer people are using cash. So no need for new coins anytime soon. So you can enjoy your small pleasure for a while, even if not that many people are joining in.
 
liquidindian said:
Apparently it's not that they're being phased out, there are just loads sitting in warehouses because fewer and fewer people are using cash. So no need for new coins anytime soon. So you can enjoy your small pleasure for a while, even if not that many people are joining in.
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Happy to be in the happy minority :)
 
liquidindian said:
Apparently it's not that they're being phased out, there are just loads sitting in warehouses because fewer and fewer people are using cash. So no need for new coins anytime soon. So you can enjoy your small pleasure for a while, even if not that many people are joining in.
Click to expand...
Got me thinking - how many 1p and 2p coins would it take to build a house with them? And would it be cheaper than a standard house?

You might need a lightning rod, mind, given the house would be made out of metal.
 
Paying into self service tills with copper coins keeps them in circulation. I've got tonnes I could do with using, over the counter always feels awkward so self serve is the only option left (and with so many card only machines even this option is starting to reduce)
 
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