What:s in Your Wallet, Cash or Card?

[EPelle]

Spekeröd, Sweden

Unarmed transport truck was disabled by robbers last week just outside of Statoil. As has been the trend of late, some type of explosive was used to blast a huge hole in the truck, and 500-kronor bills made for great wet-paper-sticks-to-tires-on-rainy-day for passersby.

We had a shortage of money at ATMs in Göteborg. No money was transported to/from ATMs this weekend past due to this event. Deemed too dangerous right now. If you didn:t have money in hand before the weekend, you had your hopes on places that accepted bank cards.

Brings up this question I have for you:

Cash or card? Which do you prefer, and why?

[dukehjsteve]

Cash is fine for the small stuff, but I use my VISA card for almost everything for 2 very, very good reasons:

Like that 30 to 45 day float

Of greater importance, I love earning those dollar for dollar frequent flyer points on my USAir VISA card, that also includes United.

And needless to say I have not paid a finance charge in over 20 years.

[tafnut]

Debit card - out sheer unadulterated laziness. I shun credit cards and my wallet perpetually has one lonely 1-dollar bill in it, not matter how recently I hit the ATM.

[lonewolf49]

Credit Card whenever possible.
Lost cash is gone. Lost cc can be cancelled. Instant Receipt , Record of expenses ( my goal is everything deductible) and the float..

[SQUACKEE]

you gotta have both. debits, credits, change, paper money, gold and diamonds. its funny but the super rich almost never have any cash on them.

my bro-in law went golfing with 2 multi millionaires and the club didnt accept credit cards! my bro-in law had a lot of cash on hand cause he was on vacation. he ended up paying for the whole thing. about $300.00
see- the rich do get richer

[lonewolf49]

Good point on the cash.. I do rathole cash for emergencies.. like serious cash discounts for home and car repairs.. and paying greens fees for rich folks who won't admit to having any cash...n em..

[bad hammy]

Primarily card. Cash for the small stuff.

[mojo]

Debit. Debit. Debt!

[Pego]

A card whenever possible.

[bad hammy]

Oh, and always have a backup credit card. More times than I care to remember, my card company's fraud alert folks have put my primary card on deactivated mode. Just happened again two nights ago. Apparently someone from AOL was trying to get access to my card, but had the wrong expiration date. I find out when the card is failing to work at the grocery store. It also happens sometimes on extended trips, where they see too many transactions in too many distant places.

[tlb747]

Card! No lets me carry the $600+ cash in my wallet.

[donley2]

Debit card - out sheer unadulterated laziness. I shun credit cards and my wallet perpetually has one lonely 1-dollar bill in it, not matter how recently I hit the ATM.

LOL. I usually have one or two dollars, and rely heavily on the debit card.

[utkvol80]

I use a debit card.

[lonewolf49]

Maybe I am missing something here but why debit cards? Why forego the float on credit cards?

[MJD]

That and the points. Have a couple of credit cards and a debit card which I never use and usually a bunch of USAnian and Canuck cash and some USAnian travellers cheques. If the timing is wrong, it can be a few bucks. Coming home from up north one Sunday and noticed that I didn't have my wallet on me. Tore the truck apart and then managed to figure out that I likely left it at the store where I had bought the papers. Sure enough, clerk remembers a very helpful woman who was two behind me saying to the kid that was right behind me(while he was leaving the store) about the wallet that was on the counter:

"That your wallet?"

"Why yes, thank-you."

I'm the idiot here for just leaving it there but the kid had a lot of balls and the woman and clerk probably shouldn't have let it happen. I wouldn't have.

Start working the next day to replace everything in it and get a call from a very excited lady from the post office about a hundred miles from where I left it:

"Are you ever going to be glad you are talking to me."

"Why?"

"Someone dropped your wallet in a mailbox." Kind of nice of the kid I suppose.


"That's great. Thanks. Was there any money in it?"

Her voice is now no longer excited.

"No-was there some in it?"

"Yes-about 1000.00."

"Oh."


Ever the optimist, I tried looking at the bright side and that is that getting the wallet back probably saved me about 1000.00 in time replacing everything. Pretty lame but the best I could do. If it would have been CSI, they would have dusted it for prints and caught the guy. No one was interested in that.

[skyin' brian]

The problem with cash is that since it is already out of my bank account, it is too easy to spend.

The problem with debit cards are that they are too convienent.

i usually just carry the debit and little or no cash. the only time things are different is when i go to a bar or something and have to decide whether or not i want to just bring how much cash i want to spend or just the card and open a tab(ive found this is convienent since you only tip at the end and can base that on the overall service)

[dukehjsteve]

[quote="lonewolf49"]Maybe I am missing something here but why debit cards? Why forego the float on credit cards?[/quote]

I'm with you lone wolf. For the life of me I just cannot see why anyone would use debit instead of credit, as long as they have the wherewithall to PAY IT ALL OFF EVERY SINGLE MONTH. AS we both have said, it's free money for 1 to 1 1/2 months, plus frequent flyer points or other such perqs.

[EPelle]

One issue I have here is that not every establishment has the convenience available for patrons to use bank cards. Too expensive, owners say. Instead, they lose business to someone down the street who has a card reader. Wonder how many thousands of kronor every year, on an average, these owners lose on missed opportunity... if it outweighs the cost of installing and paying for a machine.