"Cash Only" vs. "No Longer Accepting Cash - Cards Only"

Last night I walked by a taco truck that said "Cash Only"
A little later I passed by a Subway that said "Cards Only"

Where do you stand? There's obviously some class issues coming into play... I have friends that say "Oh, I never carry cash anymore" but also a bartender/under-the-table buddy that has no financial digital presence, no Paypal account, no debit card, just a wallet full of cash, and he seems to get along fine

I personally feel naked without a little bit of cash, enough for a can of beer at the market at least

Seem like we're currently torn between both worlds... A friend just visted Japan and said that cash is still king, but I was in Sweden last summer and they do cards for essentially every transaction... like you don't run up a bar tab, everything is immediate point of sale, tap the card on the little device

Cash has really disappeared where I am (Aus). I actually really feel for the homeless, because now, people genuinely dont have anything to give them bcs no one carries cash anymore.

There was a move for a lot of "card only" here but there's legal issues because they have to be able to offer payment options without adding the fees.

yeah, I get that about the homeless, I passed a street musician in Stockholm that I thought deserved something but I had nothing in my wallet and he wasn't set up for digital

card only pls and thanks the edge cases idk

the corner store down the road from me charges a flat fifty cents per card transaction, so a $4.50 beer becomes a $5.00 beer and that sucks

I do feel safer with card only - you lose/have your wallet nicked, a quick call and you can lock all the cards. Cash is just gone, baby.

Last year we took a trip to Prague, and no exaggeration, I never saw a single unit of their currency. Even at the Christmas markets, the vendors were cash free.

xpost but yeah the other side is the fees. And they can be hidden and really rack up sometimes ugh.

xp I'll make sure to steal your phone instead, trayce

I never saw a single unit of their currency

pretty sure they're on the euro, yeah?

nope!

I mostly use cash for doing laundry these days.

when I did the card-only Sweden trip, I got hit with a bunch of 'foreign transaction fees' on my statement, for every transaction... I guess there's a way to buy some of the local currency and have it on your card? But I've never tried this

I guess it will be at some point:
The koruna is one of the European Union's eight currencies, and the Czech Republic is legally bound to adopt the euro in the future.

I personally feel naked without a little bit of cash, enough for a can of beer at the market at least

I used to be this way, but I got out of that mindset during the pandemic because I was no longer routinely stopping at ATMs while out and about, and was generally trying to avoid unnecessary trips/interactions.

Before that, I never liked using a card for purchases under $10, even when businesses didn't have a minimum. It seemed impolite somehow. Now it seems like everyone just uses a card all the time, so I don't even think about it anymore.

there was kind of a counter-culturish bar in Oakland that staunchly refused cards for many years, but I saw recently that they've come around... I think they realized they were losing business to bars that did accept them

in southeast asia, it's cash, card... and e-wallets. lots of people don't qualify for credit cards here and debit cards attached to your primary bank accounts are seen as a security risk so much better to move smaller amounts into your mobile apps and use that to pay for stuff. you don't need a bank account to have a digital wallet either.

western financial regulators don't seem to have caught up yet, but this has so far also been the best way to avoid the "foreign transaction fees" situation - QR payments are on a common platform across SEA so a traveller going between say, Manila and Singapore don't have to carry anything but their phone to pay for things and generally don't get hit by cross-border charges (and if they are, it's usually minimal)

xp Yeah there have always been a number of cash-only bars in Chicago, but fewer than there used to be.

There was an ice cream shop in my neighborhood that didn't take cards bc they said the fees were too high, but they did take Venmo and Zelle.

i can remember, decades ago, gas stations having slightly higher prices to pay by card. that sort of thing disappeared, but seems to have now returned at certain restaurants in my neighborhood (i.e., they're passing along the card fees to their customers)

i kind of feel like businesses should be legally obligated to accept cash

I see gas stations that still have different cash/card prices.

Paying cash at bars in NYC saves you 9 pct on your bill, which basically gives you your 12th one free vs paying with a card

xp yeah, I've definitely seen the cash 'discount' on gas, recently

The Subway shop I reference in the orig post may have been robbed one or more times... that sign is fairly recent. So I can see an incentive to remove cash from the premises, to protect employees and not have to hire a security guard

There's a cash-only bar I go to about once a week; I don't drink, but their burgers are great. I pay cash for gas, too. I always carry some, but not a lot — I get a couple of hundred out of the ATM every two weeks or so. Generally, I'm pro-cash because I'm old so it's a lifelong habit, but anyway you never know when you'll need it, and maybe there are things you don't want showing up on your credit card statement.

I believe pot dispensaries are cash-only because it's a way the federal government can fuck with them, like, we have to let you do your business because your state said you can, but we don't have to make it easy on you.

I think it's a matter of banks not being able to deal with it (yet), which may be related to government shit.

I noticed in CA a couple of weeks back a lot of gas stations had lower prices if you paid with cash. I feel like I've seen that at ... restaurants? Somewhere else common, at least, with slightly lower prices with cash.

I like cash. The venue where I saw Blood Incantation tonight is cash only. The place where I saw PJ Harvey, on the other hand, is cash-free, and they had the lights dimmed for mood, and the cards I keep in my wallet are all the same shade of deep blue and I couldn't see shit.

? Gas being priced differently for cash is decades-old.

Barbers* hereabouts prefer cash; some have in-shop ATMs. Those that take credit may offer a discount for using cash, which is the same as a surcharge for credit, really.

Local bagel shop is cash only with an ATM.

A lot of my gigging/busking mates have QR codes for tipping. I am not that organized... when I play music with a tip jar or busk, I don't expect much by way of income because I know that my townspeople don't carry cash.

Cash has really disappeared where I am (Aus). I actually really feel for the homeless, because now, people genuinely dont have anything to give them bcs no one carries cash anymore.

I think about this all the time!

Dud

Which is to say: both of the options in the title are DUD.

I’m noticing a lot more “system is down, cash only for now” or straight up “cash only” in small local businesses.

* Re barbers. The going rate for a haircut has gone from under ten to over twenty dollars in my lifetime. Sometimes the amount

Due to social awkwardness or just a love of tidiness in daily affairs, I don't like asking for change in a tipping situation. I am happiest when I can hand over an amount of cash that includes an appropriate tip, without having to specify how much change I want back.

Like, when a haircut was $8 and $2 was an okay tip, I felt super smooth was handing over a ten and not even saying 'keep the change, because duh.

Currently haircuts are 20 or 24 dollars, so when ai get my hair cut I have to stop at an ATM and stop at a convenience store to buy a soda or something so Thar I have small denominations for elegant tipping.

U.S. taxis were VERY grouchy about switching to cards, and made it known. Heck, some cabbies still are dicks about it, and purposely protract and stall on taking cards. I had a taxi driver audibly grumble about making change for $40 on a $22 cab ride once, to which I say, dude wife.

Parallel development: ATMs rarely dispense 5s or 10s anymore

Ouch, terrible phone typing above. Dude wife was supposed to be dude wtf

The cost to the owner of accepting card payments is surely outweighed by not having to cash up at the end of each day and queue up at the bank once a week.

One would think, but I presume small business people know their own situation better than I do and have made their cost/benefit calculations as grownups who know their options and constraints.

Ah, money:
- I like cash. It's a little old-fashioned. Good for small businesses that get plundered by Mastercard fees (bakeries). Also good to see the money get out of your wallet rather than disappear in the technosphere (financial management).
- I used to be afraid criminals would find a way to pass behind you and "tap" your debit card, but I guess that never materialized. That's my default.
- Credit card is obviously needed. At the same time I am very disciplined with online shopping. Sometimes I'm even tempted to move to prepaid.
- We have a national app (called Twint) that allows anyone with a phone number to send money to anyone else, perfect for settling bills at the restaurant/bar. It's linked to the credit card. You can also use it for online shopping.

Basically a mix makes sense. I don't use my phone (partly paranoia, but also don't see the point) as a payment device except for things like parking. And I think people paying with their digital watches at the supermarket look ridiculous (no offense if you do it, but it's such a gadget).

I never carry cash and haven't for years, to my wife's annoyance. I bank at wells fargo and they've also decided to remove all their banks from my part of town and even remove the ATM from the nearest branch entirely so fuck that.

weed shops do debit in CA.

I think they're all cash or debit here/everywhere, too. Debit is basically the same as cash.

There are a few good excuses I've heard from especially small businesses for going cash-free, at least in the States. One is that you don't have to worry, or need to worry less, about anyone skimming off the top/stealing. Another is that you don't have to spend time balancing the sheets at the end of the day. And a big one is that you don't have to worry (as much) about getting robbed, either in the store or on the way to deposit your big pile of cash at the bank.

re: card fees paid by the business, just the other week we had to bring the car in to the dealer for some minor stuff. When we got the bill you could pay cash/debit/check with no fee, or credit with a not insignificant transaction fee, but the bill also stressed that the transaction fee was (supposedly) still less than what the dealer was being charged.

There's also this new fad of paying for everything in installments, which is very alien to us. My partner needed a new phone and it was Black Friday so hey. Before even asking what type of phone she wanted, the employee checked if she was eligible for paying in installments, and almost apologized that my partner wasn't. Like girl, we didn't even get a leasing on our car, you think we want to pay for a phone over 24 months ?

Installments does seem to have made a comeback, and it seems particularly predatory this time around. Even online, I keep getting unprompted alerts that I can pay in installments.

Yeah the narrative is "get it now, pay later".

Pay in 4 is really predatory. I wound up having $600 worth of 3rd/4th payments of Pay in 4 one month without realizing it when things got really tight this year (now I refuse to use them).

I always have some emergency cash and try to have some cos you never know when a card machine won’t work for whatever bs reason…enjoy the seamless of contactless payments though & use them all the time

Oh yeah and I always tip in cash.

I do worry about incorporating so many functions into one's phone. If your phone is lost, stolen, hacked, or otherwise inoperable there are loads of things that you suddenly will be unable to do.

Relevant yadda yadda

https://xkcd.com/2212

I bank at wells fargo and they've also decided to remove all their banks from my part of town and even remove the ATM from the nearest branch entirely so fuck that.

I've had a Chase account for over 20 years but there are only 5 Chase branches in all of Montana, so I had to open a second account at a local bank just to be able to make ATM withdrawals without fees.

I have never used my phone as a credit card (i.e., tapped a credit card reader with my phone to activate Google Pay). I guess I'm somewhat resistant to it; I want to use the physical card. Same with my public transportation fare card.

yeah, i will never do that

places that don't accept cash can fuck off imo

Working on a college campus, I'd say the younger kids are 100% on board with paying by phone, I see it alllll the time. I'm not there yet, not sure when I'd ever feel comfortable with that tbh.

Speaking of Chase, I've noticed that two branches nearest my work and home have those separate, locked ATM vestibules that you can access by tapping or swiping your card. However they've both recently changed the ATM vestibule hours to match the bank branch itself, so when the branch closes at 5 pm, the ATM vestibule also becomes inaccessible after 5, which seems pointless? It's infuriating.

I almost never pay by phone *except* when taking public transportation.

Oh, also zoned parking spots.

I'm way too paranoid to pay for anything with my phone, or link my credit card or bank account to my phone at all. It's bad enough I have a phone app I need to log in to work remotely.

"Cash only" is inconvenient and I hate when it causes me to use the nearby-provided ATM at usurious fee rates, BUT it's untraceable and doesn't collect data about my purchasing or behaviors so it's probably best, I just never have cash on me.

"Card only" is a cancer that harms people who don't have traditional bank accounts and are part of a cash-only or majority-cash economy, people who are the hardest hit by any downturn.

Both dud.

it's funny how the target audience for the venue, at least in places I have been in the US lately, default to the payment method most comfortable to the clientele

restaurants that skew younger have the table-side payment machines that we really should have had all along, but some servers will take your card and place it in the payment device before handing it to you to approve the transaction and give a tip. restaurants that skew older will still give you the little receipt folder and take your card back to run it, giving you the opportunity to use cash or more easily leave a cash tip

the US was way behind in chip cards and contactless payments and it feels like we're caught up, but not necessarily culturally. the irregular fees and other annoyances for businesses seems like a lot of it

being scared to pay by phone is odd to me -- every transaction uses a unique id and the vendor never gets your credit card number. it's as secure as tapping a credit card and possibly moreso than the chip reader. it kills me that some gas stations still have swipe-only readers because that's practically asking for scams these days

Costco gas stations rule, because there are coded tape strips in two separate places that staff checks for security multiple times a day so ensure the pumps are not fucked with.

I'm way too paranoid to pay for anything with my phone, or link my credit card or bank account to my phone at all.

I'm generally with you, but as my wife pointed out, your phone is a lot more secure than your wallet. If someone steals your phone they are unlikely to get access to your money, but if they steal your wallet you're out of luck. They've got your cash, credit cards, ID(s). That said, I don't have my actual bank account linked to anything independent of bills/vendors that I pay directly via the bank account online.

Anyone have any first or secondhand experience with the skimmers people carry with them in crowds that can supposedly read your credit card through your pockets/bags? Seems almost like an urban legend designed to sell, like, lead-lined wallets or something.

A university cafe I go to has cash only, see someone in there trying to argue about it sometimes, it means the homeless people outside cannot buy anything there, which is interesting. They also have an "oatmilk as standard" policy but most people seem to want regular milk and this is a huge hassle to the staff.

Last year I went to Amsterdam & I used the Revolut app on my phone for currency exchange and paid for everything with Apple Pay; I took some cash but didn’t need it at all except to buy some uh stuff from a guy

Last week I went to Germany & took basically no cash expecting itd be the same way but there were more cash only spots than I thought including much of the Christmas market. I went to a club & they didn’t take card so I ended up sending money to the bartender’s PayPal account in return for all the cash in his wallet

In general I find cash only a nuisance & would prefer to pay card wherever I can but the increasing cashlessness of society is bad for the reasons ppl have stated & there are a significant number of ppl who lose whatever financial independence they have without being able to use cash. Also I need change for the laundry

xp sorry that should be "card only" of course

My side of town had a lot of old school cash-only bars and cafes, which I was into (partially for how much they flummoxed the youth). I think the pandemic forced all of them into accepting cards, I can't think of any remaining cash-only places around here. Sometimes I get the sense that a cashier thinks I'm old & weird just for inserting a card into the reader rather than tapping.

When I was in Japan recently I ran into both card-only and cash-only situations, but cash-only was way more common. It's so odd that you can only charge up your metro card using cash at the machines.

ha I was wondering, xp

Tattoo parlors are the only businesses
I’ve noticed that always seem to be “cash only”. I mean, I get it, it’s cool.

taxis are odd as they all seem to use sumup which charges them a fee, so they prefer cash, except some don't, for reasons I am unclear about.

I know that there are a number of reasons why small businesses would prefer cash. However, I always wonder how many of them are committing tax fraud though. For example, my son (who spent a few years working under the table and was swimming in cash for a while) took his car to a local mechanic, and the dude knocked a couple hundred dollars off the bill (like $600 vs $800) because he paid for the repair in cash. My assumption being that that's not just a discount because of processing fees.

I pay by card only, the sole exception being dispensary. Preferably pay by watch whenever possible.

i prefer cash but paradoxically never have it. I don't like eye contact so I'm always mega uncomfortable when I'm waiting for the card to go through, even if it's 20 seconds. cash is fast.

i'm pretty much against any system that requires people to have a phone or a bank account as that is discriminatory whether they're trying to be that way or not. (the former, I'm talking more systems of mobile ticketing where your ticket is your phone).

the assumption of what people will have and won't always blows my mind, like they moved our company's unplanned absence line from a mobile hotline to a smartphone app last year, and then got shocked when several of our trainees told us "I don't have a smartphone", and had no backup plan other than "call your manager and they'll do it for you".

jfc, I think an important question all companies fail to consider is "how about I don't want to install Yet Another App?"

taxis are odd as they all seem to use sumup which charges them a fee, so they prefer cash, except some don't, for reasons I am unclear about.

― bad love's all you'll get from me (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, December 4, 2024 4:47 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Years ago I had a stand-out experience trying to catch a cab in Coney Island, right at the subway station. I went to each car at the cab stand, in order, and every single one said their card reader was "broken" and they could only accept cash. (This is illegal, taxis in NYC are required to accept cards.) I only had my card, no cash, and I needed to get to a work meeting.

It turns out there's an informal/underground arrangement in Coney Island to take you anywhere in the community and it's always $5, cash only, and they PACK the car full of people--you're not getting the cab to yourself. lol I both appreciate the utility of this and the way people have made their own system, but also I hate its impenetrability when you're not an insider and I need things to be more predictable than that!

Trying to think of the businesses around here that do discounts for cash, and they're all liquor stores.

Tattoo parlors are the only businesses
I’ve noticed that always seem to be “cash only”. I mean, I get it, it’s cool.

But they also want a deposit, I had to download Cash App last time because it's the only payment they accepted.

Thanks for the Nation article link!

Democrats should do disaster relief, take on homeless-shelter shifts, cook food when members have a baby, welcome new immigrants to town, and host block parties throughout the year. Effective and inspiring community engagement should be celebrated statewide—and turned into multi-chapter efforts. This is especially important in red districts: Trust is earned not through perfectly targeted messaging in the short run but through in-person care over the long run.

I talk about this ALLLLLL THE TIME with people. There are lots of kinds of organizing; labor organizers are famously conflict-seeking and create high-confrontation/high-risk situations to test their strategies and take the fight to the bosses, but in "community organizing" writ large, it is MAKING THE PHONE CALLS and listening to people talk about their problems and then trying to solve them together. And cooking meals, and having childcare, and being around; being place-based in a very tangible way.

Nabozo OTM (though I’ve never heard of that app)

Sorry wrong thread!

xp If it's a middle aged male sole owner, he's likely dodging child support.

i like card payments because when i check my bank app after a night out i can see all the bars i'v been in that i don't remember

It's so odd that you can only charge up your metro card using cash at the machines.

― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Thursday, December 5, 2024 3:37 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Put the card on your phone (just add one in Apple wallet or whatever) and you can charge it up from credit/debit cards. I really like the Japanese transit cards because they are the closest thing to cash - stored value on the card - also at the cheaper end of thing for merchants to process. Germany has a really good system of on the instant, spot bank transfers which short circuit the credit card systems.

On the one hand I really love the convenience of tap and pay from the phone and haven’t had any cash for years. My wife found a 20 in the street the other day and gave it to the book reading homelesss guy outside Prahran Aldi almost straight away. It’s almost the only Australian banknote I’ve seen in years.

mostly i keep cash for situations that merit tipping - pubs, barbers, taxis, plus the odd collection at work. otherwise i think i'd never have cash on me

my dad will ask if there is a cash discount in pretty much any scenario involving payments over $100, and it's surprising how often there is!

also I've been panhandled here in Austin by homeless guys who accept Venmo

Oooohh yeah, my ex was a real old school type of New Yorker and always had cash on him, and even offered his customers a discount if they paid in cash (literally hilarious envelopes full of like $7000 in fifties).

when my dad died and me and my brother were helping mom sort out the house we found several thou squirreled away around the place in twenties cos he was a big "can't trust a bank" guy

There’s always costs of processing transactions; even cash it takes someone’s time to cash and bank the take at the end of the day, but as ever who pays is shifting.

I hate surcharges for card use but get why merchants (ok maybe just small merchants) put them on. It should come as no surprise that the payments industry is deeply fucking iniquitous and set up for the big players to win. I’ve been in the weeds if it for a few years and whilst I have learnt a bit; every time I talk to payments people the scope my ignorance expands by a lot more.

It costs between 1.5% and 5% to process a credit card. Most small merchants use a flat fee processor which puts it on the high end, higher if you, for convenience use Braintree, stripe or square (so easy to set up and turn on). Want to move to a cheaper system, you have to be big enough, especially because the tech overhead goes up massively.

You could save money by unbundling the interchange fee (card networks and issuing banks) and acquiring bank fee (the bank that processes and pays the transaction) but you better know your customer mix. If you’ve got a lot of foreign transactions or customer with points earning cards then your in the hole paying for their free flights. You were anyway but the flat fee was protecting you, a bit.

What’s worse then if your a small grocer going up against Woolies - Woolies run their own payments company and acquiring bank called W Pay, they are paying the acquirers fees to themselves. And guess what, their sales guy is on the phone offering you a great deal to pay some of your margin to your biggest competitor.

Lots of big corporations run their own payments systems and some even charge the same surcharge as the little guys so win twice.

At least the EU regulates interchange fees and Australia does a little bit. These systems are just so iniquitous.

imagine a functional US government that nationalized the electronic card payment and processing systems and charged it to the game

Oh yeah, and fraud protections on credit cards - you as the merchant pay for those and are absolutely crippling for small businesses - chargeback and return fraud are so rife in mail order, institutionalized by Amazon.

And get this what kind of a merchant you are sets your card processing fees. Petrol stations get the lowest because card networks and issuers want your cards to be front of wallet and so incentivising your most regular transactions is the thing. Can an EV charging network catch the same break - hell no, because we use app and the card is captive anyway and not pulled out and swiped.

Reading the MasterCard fees book was a real eye opener. I should post a link.

One of the things I appreciate about this thread is that it confirms for me something that I’d suspected for some time but hadn’t been certain of: we’re all over the place as a world when it comes to paying for anything

@ Ed - don't forget CC chargebacks, where the customer just say "I didn't buy that, I'm not paying" and it's on the company to prove that yes, yes you DID buy it.. I deal with that shit all the time

One of the things I appreciate about this thread is that it confirms for me something that I’d suspected for some time but hadn’t been certain of: we’re all over the place as a world when it comes to paying for anything

It brings to mind the famous quote from William Gibson: "The future's already here, it's just not evenly distributed."

I just mailed a check to an NGO/Nonprofit because the last time I tried to donate, my card got hacked and there fraudulent charges almost immediately - they were very apologetic but I'm not taking another chance

https://image.itmedia.co.jp/l/im/mobile/articles/1803/19/l_si7101-BicBit-02.jpg

I always love this image of all the ways you can pay for things at Bic Camera in Japan. All these people are competing for a slice of your payments.

It’s not even up to date, I’m getting heavily marketed to join JALPay and JREPay at the moment. The latter one is a head scratcher because JREPay (maybe running on top of PayPay) is their second payments platform - they created the FeliCa system and run Suica, but maybe did it too well because the fees they earn are too low.

As mentioned passim I've recently come back from a holiday to Berlin, and I remember the last time I went - in 2015 - there were a surprising amount of places that didn't have portable card machines.

But one of the museums I visited, the Deutsches Technikmuseum, required a €1 coin for use of the lockers. Because the lockers had old-fashioned physical locks with a mechanism that accepted a coin. Which was awkward because I only had a €2 coin. So I asked the reception desk if they had change, but they had a pile of plastic tokens instead because I was not the first person to have this problem. If I was Adrian Chiles I could pad this paragraph out for a few more words and get paid real money for it. You are getting this entertainment for free, you should be grateful.

The Wings of Desire Victory Column only accepts cash. It's €4 to climb the stairs. But luckily I had a €5 note. I handed that to the receptionist and got €1 in change back. The hilarious thing - it really is hilarious - is that if I had visited the column first I would have ended up with a €1 coin! Which would have solved my problem at the Technikmuseum. If only I had done that.

But I didn't, because I didn't plan ahead. I wafted through the city with the assurance of a sleepwalker.

Put the card on your phone (just add one in Apple wallet or whatever) and you can charge it up from credit/debit cards. I really like the Japanese transit cards because they are the closest thing to cash - stored value on the card - also at the cheaper end of thing for merchants to process. Germany has a really good system of on the instant, spot bank transfers which short circuit the credit card systems.

Unfortunately you can't do it with an android phone, so it wasn't an option for me. The Suica cards were amazing, though I didn't usually use them at stores because of the whole cash recharge thing (wanted to save them for trains).

when my dad died and me and my brother were helping mom sort out the house we found several thou squirreled away around the place in twenties cos he was a big "can't trust a bank" guy

The $20s were in paper grocery bags.

that should cover the funeral

it covered my dad's funeral and he used to tell my mom "check all my coats if i die" but i don't think she loved the thought of living in a house full of stealables

There was no service bc she had alienated everyone who would have attended. They split up the money and I never heard of it again.

i feel like there's a difference with the reason there LL even tho it doesn't make the fact itself less comfortable? i'm more sympathetic to a woman wanting some financial autonomy, even tho that's not necessarily what you're describing - not hair-splitting just wondering if you think that's what motivated your grandma?

Oh yeah there’s a difference — I was just responding to the discovery of mystery money! Wanting financial autonomy is exactly what I’m describing. She was just suuuuuuper pass agg and unpleasant about everything so my sympathy about this is limited.

yeah i didn't want to sound like i was judging, like even with my dad i thought he was being stupid but i understood his reasons, for women i think squirreling must've been a strategic necessity forever

god I wish my dad hid money some place, maybe I should check his old clothes.

I was in Bulgaria years ago where they love U.S. currency, especially the $20 bill.. however, they inspect the bill carefully and if anything is written on it, or it's taped back together, they'll ask you for a new bill... they adore the crisp new bills with all the anti-counterfeiting stuff

South America was like that, they take US currency but it pretty much has to be uncirculated or they'll refuse. Well, except Ecuador obviously.

I’m almost there with the blockchain/defi people or at least the left/progressive end of that spectrum. Build a decentralized payments system as a free/low cost cash alternative. Trouble is the really is let me build my own walled garden payments grift. Plus even the left wing end of that spectrum fundamentally misunderstand money, imbuing it with far to much mystical power.

yep

the radical possibilities of freeing exchange from state control are great until they hit the reality of dumbass libertarian grift

yeah, and once blockchain was really explained to me, I realized how wildly inefficient it is

let's all carry gold dust in a little vial, with little scales everywhere

I don’t want to live in a world where kids are paying the ice cream man with prepaid debit cards.

Apple has an app for that - Apple Cash family

That’s worse actually.

I don’t even child

My kids allowance is in Apple Cash. She stops and buys candy from circle K on the way home from school.

I haven't been to a cash-only dispensary in years, they at least seem to all take debit.

Xp Ed — here there are some merchants associations and other groups like that which will collectively negotiate cheaper processing rates for members of their association… I think NAMM might do this/have done this in the past?

I am genuinely curious about the people who pay for stuff with debit cards vs credit cards… outside of transactions where you are charged an additional % fee for credit, which is rational… or do you not have credit cards that give you cash back or other rewards?

xp If it's a middle aged male sole owner, he's likely dodging child support.

It turns out there's an informal/underground arrangement in Coney Island to take you anywhere in the community and it's always $5, cash only, and they PACK the car full of people--you're not getting the cab to yourself. lol I both appreciate the utility of this and the way people have made their own system, but also I hate its impenetrability when you're not an insider and I need things to be more predictable than that!

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, 4 December 2024 17:02 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I used to live in this place called Tongzhou, officially it's a district of Beijing, in practice it's a town 8km away with (at the time) patchy transport connections, it was on the subway, but the subway would stop at sth like 10:30, and buses not long after, so if you were out on the town of a night there was only one realistic way to get back, you would have to negotiate with the unlicensed cab drivers at Guomao (where the road to Tongzhou gets to the central ring) - once you had negotiated a price you would find a space in this car with as many people as they could cram in, then you'd have a lightning-fast ride down the highway so the driver could get back and pick up another batch of passengers. One time I got in one of these cars and saw the driver had a stack of CDs on his dashboard, and just before we left he took them and jammed them in front of his license plates, front and back, then he drove us down the toll highway at around 140mph, slowing down to 30 only to smash his way through a toll gate which he must have known was loose.

I am genuinely curious about the people who pay for stuff with debit cards vs credit cards…

I do this because f a credit card company, I guess. It's reflexive, my bank is still one of the big evil ones so I guest it's a purely academic distinction.

I briefly tried the "hey I'll charge things to my CC, pay it off end of month, get reward points" thing but quickly realized that the further away I was from teh spend, the more likely I was to just say "hmm or I could just carry the balance to next month and go nuts with the extra cash I have" and as a result now I'm in Chapter 7 proceedings lol.

a lot of people stick with their debit card to avoid massive credit card debt, I know a fair amount of people who consider their credit card for emergencies only

I purely use credit cards for the small amount of consumer protection and the fact it's basically the same interaction whether paying with credit or debit. If my credit card gets hijacked in some way, it's someone else on the hook until I pay my credit card bill and I can dispute it. If someone gets my debit card or its number, they can drain my bank account and I'm going to have to claw my money back.

I know that I'm also lucky to be in the small subset of people who don't have a need to carry a balance on the card, though, and I don't use it as a way to take on debt. I'm paying that thing off several times a month.

I purely use credit cards for the small amount of consumer protection and the fact it's basically the same interaction whether paying with credit or debit. If my credit card gets hijacked in some way, it's someone else on the hook until I pay my credit card bill and I can dispute it. If someone gets my debit card or its number, they can drain my bank account and I'm going to have to claw my money back.

And I only carry a balance one or the card that is 100% business so I can deduct the interest and fees as a business expense. … but hey, maybe the Trump admin will bring back the deduction for personal credit card interest to stimulate the economy and encourage crippling debt.

I pay my whole credit card balance every month, except for when I have to do something really big (like move across the country) and then I pay a big chunk of it, but not the whole thing, for five or six months until the swelling goes down.

ed is otmfm, here's a good read if you're interested in learning about how visa, mastercard et al own the world:

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/how-credit-cards-make-money/

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/anatomy-of-credit-card-rewards-programs/

Interchange

When you swipe your card at the local cafe, multiple sales have necessarily happened. One is selling you a coffee. One was selling you a credit card. And one was selling the cafe on the desirability of accepting your credit card brand.

The sale to the cafe went something like this: You’d sell a lot more coffee if you accepted our credit cards. The best coffee drinkers carry our plastic, and they will drink coffee where they can use our plastic. You should pay us a bit for bringing you these desirable coffee drinkers, just like you’d pay for an ad in the paper that brought you desirable coffee drinkers.

That fee is called interchange. (Technically speaking, the industry dices up the fee into a few different parts and has different names for them, but let’s agree to call it interchange for the moment.)

The lion’s share of interchange goes to the card issuer… at least for the moment (oh don’t worry, we’ll get to that). Issuers have this argument for why they should get most of the fee: they do most of the work in the ecosystem. They signed you up for a card. They take the credit risk if you drink your coffee but don’t pay your bills. They will answer a phone call at 3 AM in the morning on the second ring if you have a problem with the card.

A much smaller portion of interchange goes to the credit card processor, to the acquiring bank, and to the credit card network. (Stripe makes a very large portion of our revenue by taking a small portion of the cost of interchange which we charge our business users.)

the EU is, as usual, much ahead of the US and has regulated interchange fees to be about 0.2-0.3% versus the 1-5% in the US

I pay my whole credit card balance every month

people that do this are ironically called 'deadbeats' within the CC industry

the cash price discount i think is illegal unless made legal by law, which new york has done

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-new-law-clarify-disclosure-credit-card-surcharges-goes-effect-sunday

DO:

The business lists the higher credit card price next to a lower cash price.

The business lists the credit card price for items and services, then lets customers know they will receive a discount for using cash.

The business changes all prices to the credit card price.

DON’T:

The business posts a sign on the door and at the register stating an additional 3.9 percent surcharge will apply for credit card purchases.

“This business has a 4 percent cash discount incentive built into all pricing. Any purchases made with a credit or debit card will not receive the cash discount and an adjustment in cost will be displayed on your receipt.”

A convenience fee, service fee, administration fee, non-cash adjustment, technology fee, processing fee, etc., is charged to credit card users and added as a separate line item on a customer receipt.

The price tag of an item shows “$10.00, + 4 percent if paying with a credit card.”

NOTE: This law does not apply to debit cards.

when I did the card-only Sweden trip, I got hit with a bunch of 'foreign transaction fees' on my statement, for every transaction... I guess there's a way to buy some of the local currency and have it on your card? But I've never tried this

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, December 3, 2024 7:41 PM (two days ago)

just get a credit card with no forex fees

struggling to recall that Uncle Junior quote from the Sopranos where he talks about how he wants the people that owe him money to just make the minimum payments instead of payign their debts off in full cos it's hella more lucrative that way

i live in a chinatown, so that means i always have cash on me and feel uncomfortable when i don't. but i also churn credit cards so pay with a card whenever possible. AMA

re: cash, i think would be a lot more palatable in the US if the penny wasn't so useless. see this excellent caity weaver article https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/01/briefing/the-penny-us-currency.html

the US was way behind in chip cards and contactless payments and it feels like we're caught up, but not necessarily culturally. the irregular fees and other annoyances for businesses seems like a lot of it

― ɥɯ ︵ (°□°) (mh), Wednesday, December 4, 2024 11:23 AM (yesterday)

imo almost there but not quite. contactless still takes way too long, most terminals require you to hold the card there for like 3-5 seconds before it registers, inexcusable. the tech is too good for it to take that long and places like hong kong have near-instantaneous rfid readers. even the new mta omny readers take way too long. bad, just bad

i do a fair bit of traveling in china when i can and it's almost a completely cashless economy. everybody has wechatpay or alipay and everybody pays each other with qr codes. only tourists use cash

Xp dayo — I don’t expect that the 1.5% I get in cash back is hurting my bank — and I like having the cards with the same bank my checking and short-term saving is, because it’s easier to track …. but it’s now something I am seeing more with bank competition focused on their cards competing against other banks’ cards — as opposed to against cash or checks or PayPal, etc. or competing with the other banks over customer service or account fees or ATM locations.

a lot of people stick with their debit card to avoid massive credit card debt, I know a fair amount of people who consider their credit card for emergencies only

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:52 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pretty much

a lot of people stick with their debit card to avoid massive credit card debt, I know a fair amount of people who consider their credit card for emergencies only

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel), Thursday, December 5, 2024 9:52 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pretty much

I use a debit card for nearly everything, the credit card is just for like airline ticket purchases and travel stuff, and I pay the whole thing off before the due date (I only have a single Mastercard)

They keep raising my credit limit without me asking, not sure why

I don’t expect that the 1.5% I get in cash back is hurting my bank

it's not because your bank is simply paying you part of the 2% or whatever they charge the business who you are making the credit card transaction with

They keep raising my credit limit without me asking, not sure why

they see you are a good credit and are trying to tempt you into spending more with your credit card so they can make more money

_I don’t expect that the 1.5% I get in cash back is hurting my bank_


it's not because your bank is simply paying you part of the 2% or whatever they charge the business who you are making the credit card transaction with

_They keep raising my credit limit without me asking, not sure why_


they see you are a good credit and are trying to tempt you into spending more with your credit card so they can make more money

xp credit cards are pretty lucrative to the banks

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/18/jamie-dimon-i-wish-chase-sapphire-reserve-cost-jpmorgan-more-money.html

JPMorgan Chase
’s Reserve credit card should deliver a good return despite it initially costing the bank at least $200 million to $300 million, CEO Jamie Dimon told CNBC on Wednesday.

Dimon was referring to the bank’s Chase Sapphire Reserve, introduced last summer, that offered a sign-up bonus worth $1,500 to people who spent $4,000 on the card in the first three months.

The bonus was widely popular and brought the card a lot of attention, but it also caused the bank to take a hit to its fourth-quarter earnings after handing out so many perks.

Dimon, speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said the card was in fact successful and that he wishes the bank lost more money.

“One of the fictions here is that the marketing cost ... gets booked over 12 months. The benefit of the card gets booked over 7 years. The card was so successful it cost us $200 million, but we expect that to have a good return on it. I wish it was a $400 million loss,” the chief executive said on “Squawk on the Street.”

India's also on the nearly-cashless system as well. It looks like the key difference is that it's all government-run. I believe my coworker had to drop by a cell phone place when he arrived to verify his identity and link his bank account to his phone, and that's it.

Dayo — curious about yr take on the WFB Bilt Card. I am kinda tempted to sign up because rent is my biggest expense and the only thing I can’t put on a card

no experience with bilt, although i enjoyed that the original version of the card was costing wells fargo $10 million a month and they had to discontinue it https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-wfc-mulls-discontinue-144000599.html

the new version seems like a reasonable card on paper and it appears they have ways to let you make rent payments onto your card even if your landlord doesn't take credit card?

my prior landlord only took cash (very annoying) and i currently pay a mortgage so not a super relevant card for me

my landlord has an online portal where you can do a bank transfer.. about a year ago they added a $2.50 'convenience fee' so if I remember in time, I'll mail a check to 'inconvenience' them

probably not much of an inconvenience as they’ll just scan the check to deposit with their phone and you’re out the cost of a stamp

I've lived in England for 6 years and use cash so infrequently that aside from 1p and 50p coins, I don't know what the others are. On the rare occasion I use cash/coins - I have to check everything like a tourist.

4 bakery/coffee shops near my office are all card only.

My father, who is 80, can't handle the fact that I never have money and every single time he drives me to the airport he insists on pulling out his money clip and giving me cash just in case.

probably not much of an inconvenience as they’ll just scan the check to deposit with their phone and you’re out the cost of a stamp

the credit card is just for like airline ticket purchases and travel stuff

last post i promise but andy it is making me irrationally angry that the one credit card you have that you literally only use for travel and travel stuff is one that charges you a 3% foreign exchange fee

stop giving your money to the banks! please don't be "i don't even own a TV" about this

cop one of these cards and never think about it again! close your other card if you have to!

https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/credit-cards/no-foreign-transaction-fee

imo if you need cash, having a debit card that refunds all atm fees is also nice. mine has no atm fees, and if an atm out of my network charges a fee, they reimburse me

Our alternative came and went today

https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/hailey-welch-s-hawk-meme-coin-hits-500m-then-dips-88-to-60m-in-minutes-11733416448187.html

imo if you need cash, having a debit card that refunds all atm fees is also nice. mine has no atm fees, and if an atm out of my network charges a fee, they reimburse me

cop one of these cards and never think about it again!

okay, okay, I'll take a look

excellent. personally, i'd go with the apple card if you have an iphone or, if you want to keep to your debit card ways, a charles schwab debit card (no forex fees on purchases AND it refunds all atm fees including those from outside the US, per mh's post)

you're just naming all the cards I have now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-nSwKOVZyk

ILX is all consumer credit counseling now, I guess we're growing up

i am here to serve.

my other hot tip for traveling abroad is that if you are given the choice, always withdraw or charge money to your card in the local currency. that means your bank (i.e. the card issuer) is doing the conversion for you and their rates are generally pretty good.

if you choose to let the atm or point of sale machine do it for you, you're gonna get a real shitty, travelex type rate (and sometimes added fee!)

oh god, some atm tried to make me an offer to do just that in canada once when it detected my card wasn’t local and it was an insanely bad rate

I learned that recently in Mexico, good tip

always withdraw or charge money to your card in the local currency

can you give an example of this? I don't know that I've ever been offered a choice with a CC purchase

has anybody ever brought you one of those little portable card readers and shown you a screen like this?

https://cdn-assets-eu.frontify.com/s3/frontify-enterprise-files-eu/eyJwYXRoIjoiYWR5ZW5cL2ZpbGVcL0ZwYTR5SkVEOVV0YVhka0F2WDVXLmpwZyJ9:adyen:yx6SzxikpP5Ke71VZVPLQ1jS0Y7DIuirRHIFSjvIQqI?width=654&height=654&format=webp&crop=fp&fp=0.5,0.5

https://docs.adyen.com/user/pages/docs/03.point-of-sale/16.currency-conversion/DCC-portrait-small-GBP.png

basically they are trying to scare you and say "you can have finality right now and know exactly how much this will cost in your home currency... you don't really know what your big, bad evil bank will charge you for the conversion do you?" but actually (surprise!) your bank (actually i believe it's visa/mastercard who do the conversion) will have a better rate because they are huge players in the fx market and get pretty good rates

Ahh, okay... I know those readers, but probably just tapped without looking that much because they don't really do tipping

I think I maaaybe saw that in Poland? It’s been a while since

Those forex questions on the terminals are a complete scam. Note they won’t even get you out of foreign transaction fees most of the time. PayPal and Amazon do this as well and whilst they are big enough for them to get a good force position I assume they are also scamming.

people that do this are ironically called 'deadbeats' within the CC industry

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, December 6, 2024 4:33 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I still use my US credit cards for reasons* and I had a bunch of fee free cards I wasn’t using cancelled by the banks because I’m the kind of deadbeat that pays his bills every month.

Reasons are that even an unused revolving credit facility counts against your credit worthiness when you are applying for a mortgage and the broker advised if cancel all my Australian CCs apart from my business one as I’d just gone self employed when we needed to apply for a mortgage. He advised not declaring the overseas cards (although not it writing ever). I never got round to reapplying for Australian cards and now I am self employed again and even the business one needs sorting out as I now use this very well setup hybrid neobank/accounting app called Thriday which has a card, does my expenses, files my taxes automatically splits off money to save for super, GST and income tax, into separate accounts and pays me interest on any money resting in the system. The fact that its sole trader only is a big block on me incorporating, I’d have to go back to doing the books in Xero.

I think the dream is still the ill-fated Chase card expansion to Canada. They couldn’t make inroads and instead of phasing it out, they just cancelled the accounts and zeroed the debt of anyone who had a balance on the card. The profit margins on credit card debt are absolutely insane, and while fixing the system would be ideal, just floating off points and paying those things off before you incur interest? Fuck em.

Just heard a great stat ona podcast just now.

Delta airlines is the most profitable US airline and it has a negative 10% operating margin on transporting people for money. It’s the money that they make from credit cards that makes up the shortfall and makes it profitable.

Just heard a great stat ona podcast just now.

Delta airlines is the most profitable US airline and it has a negative 10% operating margin on transporting people for money. It’s the money that they make from credit cards that makes up the shortfall and makes it profitable.

I haven’t really traveled internationally, and this thread is making me a bit nervous about when I finally do. Had always assumed that I could get foreign tender and pay for things that way, but yikes - it feels like the financial markets are ready to trap and fee the heck out of everyone they can.

You just gotta be savvy about it.

yeah i think credit cards are basically subsidizing airline travel at this point xp to ed

xp to raymond - you can still get foreign tender in the US it's just very inconvenient and the rate tends to not be good, i.e. td bank offers a service where they'll give you paper currency but it takes a couple of days minimum and what if you run out during your trip? or bring too much? or your bag gets stolen? having a good credit card or atm card is good in that way as it's essentially 'pay as you go'.

Raymond, if it makes you feel any better, we’re mostly fiddling over maybe 5%-ish on average and your major expenses, like flight and hotel, are things you’ll likely sort out before you ever leave the house. And right now, the exchange rate is still relatively favorable to US citizens when going most places anyway. (please fact check me on that one, everybody)

quick Delta note - they are also more expensive to fly than other airlines, and worth it imo for lack of hassle. but if they didn't charge more they'd lose even more!

for traveling Americans, the money you lose in currency exchange abroad is offset by the money you save by not having to tip at restaurants!

quick Delta note - they are also more expensive to fly than other airlines, and worth it imo for lack of hassle. but if they didn't charge more they'd lose even more!

Xp Ed — I have a client that uses Xero and it was very counterintuitive to use and then I discovered it was initially designed for Australia, where taxes are different than in the US.

In many ways it is a really impressive program in terms of how you can configure it, compared to the popular US products. In other ways, it has some wtf “features” that make no sense.

Also xp Ed - it sounds like mortgages are different in Australia vs the US … like was it you or someone else who said that Australia doesn’t have fixed rate mortgages, only adjustable rate? Is that why it’s harder to qualify in Australia?

for traveling Americans, the money you lose in currency exchange abroad is offset by the money you save by not having to tip at restaurants!

hello 911, I would like to report a murder

isn't the mortgage rate thing also true in the UK? I remember being puzzled by articles explaining that the rate constantly changes to reflect current interest rates

i wouldn't be surprised if that were true, the 30 year fixed rate mortgage is a bizarre financial monster that could have only been dreamt up in america

you can do all kinds of oddball ones now. 30/20/15/10 year mortgages? sure! some lenders even do other ones

meanwhile auto loans can now stretch out for insane lengths

The shorter duration loans are common for commercial property purchases, so I wouldn’t consider them oddball

i wouldn't be surprised if that were true, the 30 year fixed rate mortgage is a bizarre financial monster that could have only been dreamt up in america

And Canada iirc! There are no fixed-rate mortgages in Canada!

In Britain you normally either have a variable mortgage that goes up and down more or less whenever the Bank of England changes the base rate, or you can get a fixed rate deal. But I've never heard of anybody having the rate fixed for 25 or 30 years: you get it fixed for 2 or 3 or 5 years then after that it defaults to variable or you get a new deal and fix it for a few more years.

it led to the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 and massively deincentivizes the government from investing in public housing so in my books it's a dud xp

you can still get foreign tender in the US it's just very inconvenient and the rate tends to not be good, i.e. td bank offers a service where they'll give you paper currency but it takes a couple of days minimum and what if you run out during your trip?

A couple of days to get foreign currency - is this normal in the USA?

abnormal, actually, in that it's pretty hard to get foreign currency at all in the US

Yeah, I had to go into NYC to a forex company to buy currency once before a trip to Sweden. I tried going to my bank and they wouldn't even do it.

I had no idea. It's really simple in Britain. I just go to my supermarket and it takes about a minute.

probably highly dependent on where you are in the US and what currency you need, there's one particular branch of my bank here in Austin that has Euros/Pounds/MXN Pesos on hand most of the time. But if you needed like Argentine Pesos they probably aren't gonna have any.

Yeah, that's fair; IIRC my bank told me they could order me Swedish krona but it would take more time than I was willing to wait, so I just took the train into NYC and bought them at place that had a walk-up window across the street from Madison Square Garden.

Raymond, just use the ATM at the destination airport.. yes, they'll charge you but you'll have some cash in your wallet

in 2023, I got $50 worth of Swedish kroner and just carried it around in my wallet... I finally spent it at the government liquor store the at the end of the trip, just to get rid of it but also to get buzzed

A couple of days to get foreign currency - is this normal in the USA?

My local Bank of America branch in Otumwa, Iowa always has a decent supply of Mongolian 25 tögrög notes. Unfortunately, the last time I went in, they were a little short on Rwandan 5-franc coins.

just use the ATM at the destination airport.. yes, they'll charge you

fee will be refunded if you use a charles schwab debit card, which, by the way, where are you in your process of applying for one? :)

Schwab only lets you create a bank account if you already have an investor account, right? I might be misremembering

nm, I am

A couple of days to get foreign currency - is this normal in the USA?

― Nasty, Brutish & Short, Friday, December 6, 2024 11:56 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

totally. it took me half a day of driving around Los Angeles to get £200.

i eventually found someone with pounds at a hole in the wall place in the diamond district. he only had £5 notes for some reason.

it led to the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 and massively deincentivizes the government from investing in public housing so in my books it's a dud xp

And the fixed rate mortgage is absurdly low on the list of disincentives for the US to fund public housing…

yeah, I was thinking ARMs were a lot more to blame, because they were the hot thing to foist on home buyers for several years and once the initial rate ended, it jumped to something that was much higher than expected

I had a buddy who in the subprime industry briefly in the mid-2000's: "Dude, let's get you into a house!" Me: "I don't have any money for a down payment." "You don't need any money for a down payment!"

He's an arborist now

They were also doing interest only for the first few years type loans as well … and we probably watched and read enough about it to remember all the fraud and deceptive practices that were also involved.

And yet again we are back to Jamie Dimon and Chase lol

In Britain you normally either have a variable mortgage that goes up and down more or less whenever the Bank of England changes the base rate, or you can get a fixed rate deal. But I've never heard of anybody having the rate fixed for 25 or 30 years: you get it fixed for 2 or 3 or 5 years then after that it defaults to variable or you get a new deal and fix it for a few more years.

Makes Andy’s $2.50 convenience fee look good

sarahell, you fell into my trap! the conditions for the subprime crisis could not have occurred were it not for the trillion dollar mortgage security financial weaponization complex that exists around the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. fannie and freddie would not exist were it not for the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. there would not have been a subprime loan crisis if there were no 30 year fixed rate mortgage product

it’s telling that the us is pretty much the only country in the world that espouses the 30 year fixed rate mortgage

And the fixed rate mortgage is absurdly low on the list of disincentives for the US to fund public housing…

― sarahell, Friday, December 6, 2024 1:51 PM (thirty-one minutes ago)

the government buys mortgages through fannie and freddie as a way to ensure banks are comfortable lending at a fixed rate for 30 years instead of using that money to fund public housing

sarahell, you fell into my trap! the conditions for the subprime crisis could not have occurred were it not for the trillion dollar mortgage security financial weaponization complex that exists around the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. fannie and freddie would not exist were it not for the 30 year fixed rate mortgage. there would not have been a subprime loan crisis if there were no 30 year fixed rate mortgage product

it’s telling that the us is pretty much the only country in the world that espouses the 30 year fixed rate mortgage

i am anti-car and anti-hitler too, fwiw

but if you need a bit more help, you can conduct the thought exercise of figuring out if the subprime mortgage crisis could have occurred without the existence of fannie and freddie. then you can look a bit more into why fannie and freddie exist in the first place.

And the fixed rate mortgage is absurdly low on the list of disincentives for the US to fund public housing…

― sarahell, Friday, December 6, 2024 1:51 PM (thirty-one minutes ago)

the government buys mortgages through fannie and freddie as a way to ensure banks are comfortable lending at a fixed rate for 30 years instead of using that money to fund public housing

Listen I'm gonna need mom and dad to stop fighting. This is bad for my emotional stability and well-being and your future therapy bills.

(Sorry, assuming 龜 is who I think it is and is a person who identifies as a possible dad-type human.)

i am anti-car and anti-hitler too, fwiw

Whoa, hot takes itt

Definitely anti-hitler, otm

No Longer Accepting Hitler - Cars Only

No Hitlers, No Cars, No Fixed Rate Mortgages

It's easy if you try

a neighbor left a big box of change on the sidewalk - mostly pennies, but not exclusively

couldn't even be bothered to walk them down to the Coinstar machine at the grocery store

I have a ridiculous looking "lucky cat" bank for change. My bank will accept it but it's only about half full and I'm not gonna take it in until it's full and weighs as much as a bowling ball.

I have a big plastic box in my closet full of coins (quarters are separated out for laundry)... Someday I'll bring some down to the Coinstar machine. I always feel like I've hit the jackpot using those things, even though it's actually my money less the fee

Cashing in change gives a reckoning of exactly how much money your time is worth

I have, in recent months, counted out my change to put gas in my scooter and buy eggs and cheese to get through a week. So I'm not quite as casual about it, but yes it does sit there for years until I need it for something.

I have a big plastic box in my closet full of coins (quarters are separated out for laundry)... Someday I'll bring some down to the Coinstar machine. I always feel like I've hit the jackpot using those things, even though it's actually my money less the fee

I have a small mountain of change on top of my fridge that I keep meaning to cash and never do. When I found myself needing to use laundromats for a month earlier in the year, though, it was great to have a ton of quarters handy.

One of the things that all of my clients have in common--other than a history of abuse--is an inability to count change. I've tried to teach them how, but it's only taken in one person.

that’s not zero!
the era of people complaining about cashiers not counting change up rather than just giving the money back the register says to give has seemingly abated. one of those things that doesn’t really matter

Hey dayo — an article about your fave topic

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/business/economy/mortgages-climate-risk-fannie-freddie.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

My initial thought was that some of the measures that are being proposed for F&F are similar to things that are commonly looked at by underwriters of loans on commercial property, but because the single family home is a sacred cow of sorts, there historically has been less due diligence about property conditions and environmental risks.

the era of people complaining about cashiers not counting change up rather than just giving the money back the register says to give

I would never complain about that (having spent many an hour working retail), but there are some cash-related skills disappearing.

I used to work at CIA Headquarters and all the snack bars were operated by blind people.* The cashiers could count coins by ear.

Like, it's a metal counter and you throw down a handful of coins. The cashier could (and sometimes would) instantly say "that's thirty-seven cents." Or whatever.

The etiquette with bills larger than one was to say the denomination - "here's a ten" - rather than force the guy to guess or ask.

* = Despite what one might think, this was not to do with security but simply a jobs-for-the-disabled program.

The etiquette with bills larger than one was to say the denomination - "here's a ten" - rather than force the guy to guess or ask.

And if you lie, they get you with the heart attack gun as you're walking away...

I always pay cash at the bar and now I’ve gotten into some weird sitch where I’ve got two piles of various amounts of cash in front of me and I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just give them a card next time

My high school best friend is very good at math, memorization, and embezzling from cash registers. When I told him about the counting-by-sound thing, he said he reckoned he could probably learn do it given some practice. We were extremely high at the time, so never got around to testing the theory.

i made a lot of change today. people carrying that long green around for the holiday season, i guess. don't worry i never give anyone pennies. i always round up. (these are the people i end up hating in fast food or grocery stores. the people who give me 98 cents back when i don't have any change on me and i pay with cash. i'm tempted to just start asking random people for two cents and making the cashier wait. just take the hit! if your drawer is two cents short you will be okay.)

i rarely go to the co-op market down the street because i kinda hate it there but whenever i do i always forget that no matter WHAT i buy it ends up being $7.04 or similar and i never have change and they never have any damn pennies and i swear this is at least one third of why i hate going there. people should just make their prices work out to be even when tax is added. make something $3.93 so that you just pay $4.00 or whatever.

theres a record store here that does that. the employees don't even use a cash register.

xp there was a coffee shop i stopped going to because they changed/raised all their prices. i got used to paying 3.00 or 3.50 or whatever for a coffee, and wouldn't exactly have minded a hike (it was good coffee), but then the size i always got became 4.07. so every time i went, then i had to have 93 cents in change on me. SO stupid

Ugh, this happens everywhere. There's a good pizza place here in town that hasn't figured out how to price things because a slice will end up being $5.08 however at the end of the day they've run out of change and either ask for "exact change" or to pay with a card.

yeah i think credit cards are basically subsidizing airline travel at this point

ooh (takes notes)

I have a big plastic box in my closet full of coins (quarters are separated out for laundry)... Someday I'll bring some down to the Coinstar machine. I always feel like I've hit the jackpot using those things, even though it's actually my money less the fee

― Andy the Grasshopper, Saturday, 7 December 2024 01:05 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

man john prine wouldve picked a lil melody out for this post and had a chorus tacked on in about five mins

I hate using those things, they’re always in the front of the store and they’re so loud :/

i'm not a germophobe at all but cash is the nastiest thing i handle on a regular basis

If you're using Apple for anything, you can avoid CoinStar fees by getting your payout as an Apple gift card - I buy albums, extended warranties, etc. that way

yeah I’ve paid for at least one full airline trip and maybe a hotel here and there off card travel booking every couple years

finally gave up after getting better direct deals on hotel stuff this year and now I have the big apple watch off discounted chase points and $0 out of pocket

Ahhhhh

cal stars your bar bill alone could be sending you to Tangiers

i cashed out a bunch of citi points on black friday because they were having a 20% off apple gift cards sale :|

but yeah, the awkwardness of coins, the penny, and lack of $1 coin usage make cash kind of a dud for me (reminder to folks to read that caity weaver article on the penny i linked)

Hey dayo — an article about your fave topic

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/business/economy/mortgages-climate-risk-fannie-freddie.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

― sarahell, Sunday, December 8, 2024 1:09 PM (yesterday)

my assessment: shits proper fucked, mate

Yeah coins can fuck right off, especially pennies. The only reason to have them is to avoid getting more.

Is that the only thing like that? I mean, something where the only reason to carry them is to avoid getting them?

I dislike schools leaning so heavily on coins to teach children* arithmetic or - even more absurdly - financial literacy or thrift. There is pretty much nothing worth having that costs less than a dollar.

* = My son, who is 13 years old and intellectually disabled, starts high school next year. His IQ is about 60 and he is now in his tenth year of what is basically kindergarten.

We're still working on coin math and reading an analog clock. A frighteningly large portion of his education has been focused on life skills that were important in 1937. For the world he will actually inhabit? Not so much.

I used to work at CIA Headquarters and all the snack bars were operated by blind people.* The cashiers could count coins by ear.

Like, it's a metal counter and you throw down a handful of coins. The cashier could (and sometimes would) instantly say "that's thirty-seven cents." Or whatever.

This is very cool! And a great example of a skill that probably someone who tried could eventually learn if they had to--anyone who's done a really boring/manual/repetitive job for a while can pick out some specialized skill or trick they learned from doing it. It's not, like, morally good or bad, though. It's not "bad" that most people can't do it--most people don't teach themselves to read braille either, for obvious reasons.

Agreed. I don't mourn it but more just glad to have seen it in action. Like the Japanese chefs who flip stuff, or something

Yeah, my dad has a story about a diner from his childhood where the guy would bowl your plate down the counter with backspin so it would stop in front of you, and then JAVELIN the fork after it so the fork speared into your pie as it slid to a stop. Fucking unbelievable, a lost art.

_Hey dayo — an article about your fave topic

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/business/economy/mortgages-climate-risk-fannie-freddie.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare🕸

― sarahell, Sunday, December 8, 2024 1:09 PM (yesterday)_


my assessment: shits proper fucked, mate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBD8HTssRA

We’ve come a long way, baby

https://apnews.com/article/trump-penny-treasury-mint-192e3b9ad9891d50e7014997653051ba

wonder if the caity weaver penny piece was a thought leader here!

hmmm... this was the subject of a Dave Barry piece circa 1986, seems a likely vector imo