When I was a kid, banks weren’t open during the weekends. People would go to their banks on a Friday to cash a check and stock up for the weekend ahead. For a couple of years I was a bank teller and I remember busy Friday afternoons well. I also recall my tired, aching feet after a busy day in the bank.
These days most businesses take plastic—either credit cards or Eftpos cards. (I think you have debit cards in the US). The only time I use cash these days is for bus fares and, the rest of the time, I use my credit card.
This made me curious and I wondered if other people were doing the same as me.
Do you use cash or do you tend to use plastic?
I use my credit card everywhere possible so I can get free groceries back. (By paying the balance in full monthly, there are no interest charges.) As a result, I have had $320 of my groceries paid for free each of the last three years.
I used to use a credit card that gave Air Miles, but I quickly gave that up when I realized there were too many limitations for redeeming my points. I couldn’t travel at Christmastime, during the summertime, March Break, etc., and those were the only times when our family could travel! I converted all my Air Miles into grocery gift cards instead and used my MasterCard noted above.
I use cash at the dollar stores because they don’t accept credit cards.
Hi, Laney. Hubby and I do the same with our credit cards and pay them off every month. We collect air miles, but we don’t tend to travel during holidays – no kids make all the difference – so the air miles work for us.
Our supermarkets tend to have separate rewards cards as well that we use in conjuntion with our credit cards to collect additional points for groceries.
Since almost everyone accepts credit or debit cards these days, I tend not to carry much cash on me anymore, usually only for bus fare, farmer’s market, library used book sale–stuff like that.
I use plastic for almost everything. And I rarely step into a bank.
I use both. I guess it depends where I am paying…There are some places I avoid plastic since I know those are places that are easy skimming targets.
I use both. Most of the time I use cash for things like groceries and plastic for the rest.
I prefer using cash. But my husband wants to use only credit cards so he pays just once a month.
Heather – you sound like me. Some of the stalls at our local Farmers’ market will take cards, which comes in handy because I always tend to spend more than I think I will!
Cathouse Teri – I go to the bank to visit my sister. :grin:
Savannah – touch wood, skimming isn’t a huge problem down here in New Zealand. Our cards have a special chip in them and the info changes each time you use them. It’s new technology. The only downside is that it takes a little longer to read the card so you stand and twiddle your thumbs a bit.
Maria – with the credit card option we get to use the bank’s money for a while and get interest on ours. :grin: