by Gene Michael Stover
created Sunday, 2026 April 12
updated Sunday, 2026 April 12
original at cybertiggyr.com/omo98pm.html
Some people, including friends, tease me when they see me pay with cash. It gets old. Here's a list of reasons that I sometimes use cash. I'm not saying “and so should you”.
By cash, I mean bills or coins that you hold in your hand. (Accountants include other forms of readily accessible funds even if they are digital, not just those one can hold in one's hand.)
”What about e-cash?” If we had an e-cash system that was both practical & widely accepted, this list would be different. No, Bitcoin isn't practical. Yes, there have been practical e-cash systems including Dash & DigiCash, but none of them were ever widely accepted.
The transaction is done when I walk away.
I don't need to wait for it to show up at my bank before I reconcile it. (You don't reconcile your activity, so you wouldn't care about this reason. But like I wrote at the top, these are my reasons; I'm not telling anyone else to use cash.)
I won't find that I was charged a different amount later. (I used to pay with a credit card at restaurants. In spite of tipping, writing the sum myself, & being careful to write legibly, I often saw that I had been charged a significantly higher amount. This occurred most frequently (more often than not!) in Tennessee; fuck the South. Cash stopped that. In fact, this was the main reason I returned to using cash in about 1996.)
In short: I don't walk away until the transaction is complete, & the transaction is complete when I walk away.
No need to worry about (or even think about) whether my phone is charged or the payment terminal works or there's a skimmer or other device of ill repute attached.
(Everyone predicts this is the main reason. It's not.)
Some anonymity. Not much, & that horse is long out of the barn anyway (in the US, at least), but there's some anonymity.
No surprise subscriptions later. No mailing lists later.
There are some situations when I prefer electronic, non-cash payments. Here they are...
The establishment doesn't accept cash. (It used to piss me off, but whatever. If they don't accept cash, I don't bitch. I reach for my phone. No biggie.)
When it's a big purchase. There are some purchases when you damned well want to maximize the data trail! Examples include buying property, a car, an appliance, or an airplane ticket (if you are enough of a masochist that you fly). The main data trail is elsewhere in those purchases, but the electronic payment helps. (I did pay cash for a new car once. It was a hoot, but it's probably better to use a bank transfer or get a loan that you'll pay off in a few months.)
I don't have enough cash on me. (No, I don't skip buying it.)