When i worked on building sites we used to get paid in cash in a little brown pay packet. All i remember is that when it went over to cheques in the packet to me, it meant less, obviously psychological but its true value was somehow lost for me. Speed forward to today it has even less value, tapping and swiping just adds to the banks already bulging coffers. It is being sold as 'convenience' but it is simply tempting us to spend more as its not real tangible money. Im a great advocate of cash and use it wherever and whenever i can. When i go out for a meal with the wife i take cash, in my head i know how much i need for the transport out and back and what I'm prepared to pay for our meal and a few drinks and i cut my cloth to suit this amount. Cashless is a con, plain and simple, convenient ? Yes but at your cost as more often than not you spend considerably more and the buisness's get clobbered too, so profits suffer for the independents and the big boys just up the prices to absorb it. Ive no doubt that cash will eventually disappear simply because the Banks can't make money from cash transactions. Thats the reason that branches are closing imo, no bank branches can't pay the cash in or at the very least its bloody inconvenient.
Im no conspiracy theorist but people are certainly being guided/hearded in this direction.
I get really despondent at the amount of companies putting the bottom line above everything else, greed, plain and simple. Businesses have to make a decent profit obviously but not forsaking everything else.
Yes cash is respected, give a child a fiver and their face lights up even though that kids magazine is about six and a half quid these days !
I regularly give the homeless a note or two, i don't judge what they spend it on because in their shoes i can't honestly say what i would do because a few quid isn't going to solve their problems, i know that much for sure. This can't be done with a phone tap.
Never been extremely wealthy or poor but age and the experience of wasting my hard earned in the wrong places has taught me the hard way. Now my earning power is on the decline i try not to think of the money I've wasted with nothing tangible to show for it. If i did i would be a lot better off for sure, so yes i respect money one hell of a lot more now.
Unfortunately we're pretty much all slaves to the monetary system, the minority like British red, less so, but a little money is still required i would imagine.
Great post btw !
Now I've depressed myself i'll be interested like you, to read others thoughts
