Smoke dweller here. London Buses don't take cash but you can buy an Oyster card to load up with cash and use on all forms of public transport, and either return it at the end of your visit or hang on to it in case you visit London again. Contactless is popular down here but most shops will still take cash, and if not they can tell you nearby places that will, so you should be fine.
Then stop saying it. You shouldn't have to apologise for using a payment method that works for you, and by doing so, it reinforces the attitude that "OMG, cash bad!" Use your cash as a valid form of payment like any other, because it is!
When I pay with my phone I wear a big leather jacket and do it in slo-mo, because it's so modern.
I used to use cash as a way to budget - taking out what I was allowed for the week - but now I have a dedicated spending account, and it's always up to date on the smartphone app, so does the job equally well. Getting an account with an app that showed transactions instantly was a game changer for me.
I'm sure what you say is correct, but it's not just being uncomfortable with digital banking that acts as a barrier to the excluded. There are other barriers to the excluded including being able to afford the hardware/contracts necessary for such apps or the knowledge/competence to confidently use them even if they are affordable.
I failed to make my disclaimer comprehensive enough to cover all of the stating-the-obvious points that are repeated every few posts throughout this thread.
Have to say I was fairly ignorant about how easy/convenient this kind of setup is now, until very recently, when I set up a dedicated account/card for a trip to Europe to avoid the exchange fees on my regular card.
For a significant number of people it is the only way; that's the point.
No app, no entry: How the digital world is failing the non tech-savvy
The elderly, the poor and the unbanked are among the marginalised groups being excluded from our cashless society
No app, no entry: How the digital world is failing the non tech-savvy — The Guardian
The elderly, the poor and the unbanked are among the marginalised groups being excluded from our cashless societyapple.news
“the presumption is that the elderly remain vigilant to every missive from the online world, when in fact many find it a jungle of scams, junk mail, endless passwords and security risks into which they venture as little as possible.”.
I’m not elderly, but to be frank, I do find the online world “a jungle of scams, junk mail, endless passwords and security risks into which venture as little as possible.”
I get my phone to pick strong passwords and do the remembering. But sometimes that doesn’t work. Sometimes the phone forgets, the fingerprint log-in method doesn’t work, or an app requires me to re-enter the password manually. All sorts of things can occur. And I can’t always fix them. It’s not as straightforward as they make it sound.
The point is though - what is the solution to that?
Yes: I don’t fetishise cash. I’m not saying it’s any more real than digits on a screen. QE is QE whether you print more notes or add more zeros on a screen. The point is that we can’t pretend that there aren’t barriers to cashlessness and we can’t wish them away by hoping to provide “classes”.
Agreed. If I don’t want my every purchase tracked, for example. Not because I’m “doing something wrong”, but let’s turn that around: if I’m not doing anything wrong, why do you want to spy on me?
You don't need to spend money on tech. There are these wonderful bits of technology called 'bank cards'.
Yeah some banks are like that. I remember switching to lloyds years ago and discovering that they didn't update the balance instantly and switching back to barclays again because of it. Although i think lloyds do update instantly now as my brother uses them.
It's not the tech - I'm pretty good with that - I find it much easier to keep track on my spending with cash as opposed to logging into yet another app. I can just look at the money in my hand.
Sure. And you can go live in a tent in the woods and hunter & gather your own food.
Oh, hold on now. We collectively agreed that to participate in society we all have to have a bank account? When did we agree that? I have one for several reasons. But I don’t think it should be obligatory.
Yes. It may be hard for you to believe that everyone posting on this thread already fully grasps this, but they do. Especially now we are on page 75.
I don't really want my every purchase tracked either, and I imagine it's the same for a lot of people. That's why I find it a little surprising that un-registered cash cards aren't a thing, as I mentioned earlier in the thread.
Maybe, but your repeated and exclusive use of the term "comfortable" in post #2226 suggests that your grasp was particularly deficient.
