Gripe about paying with cash

[BuckyBadger]

So you use a credit card for a bulk of your purchases, and then pay off the balance from your bank checking acct using the online bill pay feature?

If so, I see some value in this, provided it is paid off every month without exception.

The problem we sometimes face with credit cards is this: It is very easy to not budget, and just assume that the amount will be able to be covered by the time the bill comes. I suppose if you have $500 in your checking account, and limit your purchases to under that, it is easy. Probably lack of discipline on our part.

But back to the original post, for most small purchases, I almost always have some cash on hand, so it just makes sense to me to use it at the check out.

I see this on this forum a lot - things like people paying off their credit card multiple times during the month, or paying the "current balance" rather than the "statement balance." Those people simply don't understand how credit cards work.

For the 20 years that I've had a credit card I have never paid even one cent of interest. For the past 10 years or so I've charged everything that it's possible to charge in order to accrue points of some sort or another. I pay the "statement balance" every month about 5 days before it's due using the credit card's online payment feature. That means that I'm paying for purchases I made up to about 55 days earlier WITHOUT PAYING INTEREST.

It is often said that people spend more with a credit card than with cash. Perhaps for some people, but I'm confident that I am not one of them. I don't keep receipts, instead I glance through my credit card statement and make sure that everything seems reasonable and I investigate unusual charges. It's amazingly convenient. I pay very few bills monthly - pretty much just my mortgage, my credit card, and any utilities that I can't put on my card. Everything else is on the card.

Your statement that you've broken a $20 that can now be spent on a Mountain Dew? Is that a Mountain Dew that you wouldn't have otherwise broken a twenty to buy? Then it seems like paying cash makes you spend more than you otherwise would. Whenever I have cash on me for some reason or another it seems to disappear, yet I can rarely remember on what it was spent. My credit card gives me all that information without me having to do anything.

My previous record for charging something was $0.43 for a cup of hot water in the cafeteria to make tea. Now, though, I routinely charge $0.25 to refill my "Roo cup" with a fountain drink at the gas station.

No one cares, nor do they give me dirty looks. I am very competent at swiping my card

[autoxer]

So you use a credit card for a bulk of your purchases, and then pay off the balance from your bank checking acct using the online bill pay feature?

If so, I see some value in this, provided it is paid off every month without exception.

The problem we sometimes face with credit cards is this: It is very easy to not budget, and just assume that the amount will be able to be covered by the time the bill comes. I suppose if you have $500 in your checking account, and limit your purchases to under that, it is easy. Probably lack of discipline on our part.

But back to the original post, for most small purchases, I almost always have some cash on hand, so it just makes sense to me to use it at the check out.

Don't get in line behind me. Even when I have a few bucks in my wallet, I still swipe my credit card. Besides the $700 that I got in cash back last year, I like how the transactions automatically get entered into Mint, which makes it easier for me to track my spending.

[JoeP]

Your statement that you've broken a $20 that can now be spent on a Mountain Dew? Is that a Mountain Dew that you wouldn't have otherwise broken a twenty to buy? Then it seems like paying cash makes you spend more than you otherwise would. Whenever I have cash on me for some reason or another it seems to disappear, yet I can rarely remember on what it was spent. My credit card gives me all that information without me having to do anything.

If I want a Mountain Dew, or any small non-essential purchase for that matter, I will buy it only if I have the cash on hand. This has the side benefit to me of restricting the purchase of trivial things, but I am still able to use my debit/credit option if I want to override that self imposed limitation.

[MonkeyMama]

Never noticed but I honestly rarely ever set foot in a store. If I pay, I have my card ready and it is just a swipe. It seems to me cash transactions always take a long time. I guess we all feel our ways are faster. Maybe slow pokes are just slow pokes, either way. (I only pay with plastic; rarely use cash).

[ua_guy]

Actually, just today someone in front of me paid cash and I snickered when I remembered this thread.

One one hand, cash transactions can be really fast. Walk up to the cashier, hand over an even amount, i.e. a $10 bill for something that cost $5.76. The cashier can usually count and assenble the correct change very quickly. No big deal there.

It's a different story when someone is digging 5x $1 bills crumpled up inside a purse, and then digging for $0.76 in change between two different pockets full of kleenex and junk, only to come up with $0.72 and then empty the handbag to find another nickel. FFFFFFF-

I don't care how anyone pays, just don't be *that* person

[riverwed070707]

It is frequent enough. Part of the problem may be that every swipe machine is different, and some people are easily confused by trying to find the correct buttons to press.

If my wife tells me to pick up something from the grocery store on my way home, it will almost always be covered with the cash in my wallet. Plus, why on earth would I want to pay for a loaf of bread or milk with a debit card? Then I have to remember to log the transaction into the checkbook when I get home, subtract it, etc. Then some of that $20 I broke gets put into my car or wallet in case I want a Mountain Dew or coffee.

I guess I'm wrong for figuring most people would simply use cash for that $4 expense for a double bag of Doritos.

Well the benefit to not using cash for me is I don't have to fill out a check register when I get home...

[riverwed070707]

What are the benefits of using a debit card? I guess for those who may forget to pay a credit card bill. Thats the only benefit I see...that it comes directly out of your checking. Do debit cards even offer rewards?

I went to giant yesterday and picked up a bottle of seltzer water for .70 and paid with a credit card.

My CU gives me higher interest on my checking account if I use my debit card with a PIN at least 15 times a month. Difference between .02% and 4%

[creditcardfree]

but this last time at KMart

Actually this is your problem. Kmart and Sears have some of the worst customer service and antiquated ways of processing transactions. Avoid them and you'll have less to gripe about.

[disneysteve]

I rarely see problems from people paying with plastic. Zip, zip and you're done. It's the people paying cash, or god forbid a check, that slow down the line.

I did have a unique experience at WalMart the other day though which I guess will become increasingly more common as the technology spreads. I swiped my Marriott Visa and the terminal said "Card must be inserted". I had never seen that before and had no idea what it meant so I swiped again and got the same message. Finally, the cashier finished ringing up the order, saw what I was doing, and said I had to insert the card in the terminal. The Marriott cards are the new kind with the computer chip. I had to slide the card into a slot on the bottom of the swipe terminal and it read the chip rather than the magnetic strip. Pretty cool. First time I had encountered a reader that used the chip.

It did slow down the line though until I figured out what the hell I was supposed to do.

[disneysteve]

why on earth would I want to pay for a loaf of bread or milk with a debit card? Then I have to remember to log the transaction into the checkbook when I get home

I guess I'm wrong for figuring most people would simply use cash for that $4 expense for a double bag of Doritos.

I'm with you on this one. I have no idea why people use debit cards. It must make record keeping a disaster - unless they just ignore it and assume the bank is right.

As for the $4 purchase, I'd happily swipe my credit card. It's faster and easier than using cash.

[HappySaver]

...swipe my credit card. It's faster and easier than using cash.

Yes.

I have exactly the opposite experience as OP. I find a quick credit card swipe to be the fastest thing; it's the cash payers who slow down the line (check too, of course, but rarely see that).

[snafu]

Joe, are you familiar with 'Type A' personalities and potential for medical problems. Life is too short to burn up over the small stuff. My gran mumbled and grumbled about people using cheques when good old fashioned cash worked best and cashiers had to figure out and count back change.

We've had the 'chip' cards for more than a year and oh the confusion that reigns until folk pay attention to the new demands. Still preferable to cheques that will likely disappear in our lifetime. I used to think cash would become mostly obsolete until our big flood last year and city core lost power. No ATMS, electronic pay of any type was available for 3 days, everyone needed cash.

[asmom]

Nope, the one that burns me up is when people pay with check, especially when these same people decide to update their checkbook register at the same time. I am amazed at how thoughtless some people can be. Also if you insist on paying for your purchases using 20th century methods, couldn't you have at least started the check before you got the total? That's what I used to do when I used to pay by check 15 years ago.

I haven't noticed the problems with people paying with debit or credit that you have except rarely. Like someone else said, it also depends on where you shop and who your cashier is. I have observed some cashiers can be pretty slow trying to come up with the change. I find that using my credit card at Target or Publix is very quick compared to others.

[JoeP]

Trust me, I am using the advice from this thread as a learning opportunity!

I'm kind of self-hijacking my own thread, so please bear with me...

We've been focusing on NOT using the credit card because we've gotten into trouble in the past with debt in that area. Nothing major, just a couple thousand that we have had trouble eliminating. My credit card is currently encased in ice in my freezer. Sure, this is a control problem, and not the fault of the card. However, the card itself is part of the problem, so we have to embrace proper usage as opposed to the equivalent of hiding the liquor.

I'll admit we're old school: we occasionally write paper checks for bills we receive from doctors offices and for school events and sports (yes, the school still has strict NO CASH policies for some events and requires actual paper checks). Whenever possible, we use our credit union's Bill Pay feature, which withdraws directly from our checking account. So we have wife's salary going in, and lots of payments going out. As of now, this requires careful balancing in order to avoid overdrawing.

The credit card payment method is interesting to me. Being able to point all (most) withdrawals to a single source, and have a printed record of those, is compelling from a tracking perspective. We would then make a single debit payment to the credit card company and be done.

I think we'd have to start looking at our checking account differently: It would be a buffer with one input (salary) and a very small number of outputs (credit card payment, occasional paper check for school). As long as we limit cases to these, we can keep enough surplus in there to avoid overdrafting.

BIG QUESTION: How do you use a credit card to pay bills such as utilities? Do you have to log into the payee's site to have them pull payment automatically? Do you log into your credit card's site and manually push payments? Do you physically mail in the monthly bill with the credit card information written in by hand?

[disneysteve]

How do you use a credit card to pay bills such as utilities? Do you have to log into the payee's site to have them pull payment automatically? Do you log into your credit card's site and manually push payments? Do you physically mail in the monthly bill with the credit card information written in by hand?

It varies. Some companies let you set it up as an auto-payment. Our cable bill and cell phone bills are like that. Some bills I do manually on their website, like my auto insurance. They might offer auto-pay. I'm not sure. But I don't pay that on a set schedule so I prefer to do it manually.

I don't do anything ever from my credit card's own website (except check on rewards).