December 5,2006
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Livin' La Vida Cashless
To some, cash is just a thing of the past.
Nowadays, a growing group of consumers are choosing not to carry cash on them. With plastic being accepted everywhere from McDonald's drive-through to your local Shell station, there are fewer and fewer reasons to bother with "real" money. The plethora of options in credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards available to consumers is staggering, and there are more being created each day. It's hard to beat the convenience of only having a card or two in your wallet, and there's no risk of a stray bill wafting out of your pocket and being stolen. Even a lost/stolen credit card is light years easier to deal with than missing cash, which is almost always re-appropriated by the time you realize it's gone. Plus, many card issuers offer generous rewards schemes to their customers, making shopping for everything from groceries to Saturday night at the movies more rewarding.
On the other hand, it's easier to spend money – and, hence, overspend – when you don't actually see the dollars leaving your hands. The notion of a credit card tends to make money more abstract to consumers, who may not watch their resources as carefully. Plus, the interest fees you'll rack up if you carry a balance from month to month may make tiny purchases much more expensive.
For now, we will all have to make our own decision about how much cash to carry – if at all. There are those who say that we are headed for a cashless society, but it isn't the Space Age yet. As long as the treasury keeps minting dollars and cents, where will be those who insist on spending them as thus.