Card is simply better than cash
We live in a world where the swipe of a card can make a payment. With contactless making it easier, quicker and lighter to make payments it is a wonder why are we are still weighing ourselves down with cash. The Guardian highlights that ‘consumers used debit cards 13.2 billion times in 2017, while the number of cash payments fell 15%’ and this is not surprising.
Firstly, card is so much more efficient than cash. You wave a card and there’s your purchase. There is no standing at the till counting notes, or fumbling with the coins that get stuck at the bottom of your wallet. It is much easier. Speaking of coins, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p are just too small physically and numerically to be useful to carry around. Instead, they get lost, hidden in the corners of clothes and rooms. It becomes impossible to know how much money you actually have with it all so dispersed. Using card solves this. Managing how much you’re spending is easy through online banking, and the amount of money on the card is the full amount you have, not how much might be on your desk at home and in your purse. Notes are similarly sub-par. Having multiple notes means they are spread around, and easy to lose. Meanwhile, only having a card means there is only one thing to worry about, meaning it is far easier to keep a hold of.
Another positive of cards is the fact that money is a non-necessity for shopping. What a wonderful thing, to make purchases without having money yet. If you rely on cash, you actually NEED cash. The credit card can be very powerful in the fact that you don’t need the money in your bank yet to buy that pair of shoes you wanted. This is a heavily underrated perk. Christmas shopping, holiday booking, food shopping before payday; only card can help you here.
Card is also far cleaner, quite literally. The Times’ “Top 10 things you didn’t know about money” states that paper money can reportedly carry more germs than a household toilet, and transport a live flu virus for up to 17 days. Just think of how many people have touched that £10 you have with a cold. Card is the only way to avoid this.
Cash also flaunts the amount of money in a wallet, which is not always a good thing. Showing up to a risky part of town with a wad full of money is an easy way to get robbed. In contrast, nobody knows you’re a multibillionaire if you’re just carrying a little card around. Equally, there’s no shame for only having £3.50 to your name when using card. For all the population knows, you could be a multibillionaire.
It is safe to say that cash is out and card is in, purely from how much easier and better it is to use. Cash’s final obsolescence is only a matter time.
