Cork Views: Yes, cash is king... but cards can save you money

Cash is King. This is what those in power are now telling us.

Of course, most of us knew that all along and are pleased to see our elected officials catching up.

The recommendation is to keep a certain amount of cash on hand in your home in case of emergencies, such as a loss of power or an internet crash. It all sounds very reasonable.

However, there are a few issues with the suggestion. Firstly, the amount.

It is recommended that you keep €100 per family member available at all times. If you’re a family of seven that means €700 sitting idle in the kitchen drawer waiting for an emergency.

When you consider a thief will break into your car for the loose change in the ashtray, the idea of a housing estate full of kitchen drawer loot will be a bonanza for your average house-breaking burglar.

So, before you go and follow the government guidelines, you might want to check your security system first.

Maybe it makes more sense to have three days’ worth of food set aside in the case of an emergency. I’m sure three days of tinned tuna and tinned peaches wouldn’t make anyone salivate, but isn’t that more palatable than thieves having a field day at your expense?

Secondly, how easy is it to use cash?

On a shopping expedition this week, I called to a supermarket in Cork. When I tried to go to the self-service with my small few items, I was told that it was card only. If I wanted to pay cash I would have to go to the till where the queue was snaking down an aisle.

When I questioned this, I was told that it was a glitch in the system and an engineer was on his way.

Onward I went to purchase a post box cover for the front door, and here is where I found another issue with paying cash. I tracked one down in a DIY store and nearly fell over at the price point of €37.

When I googled it, I was able to get one via Amazon for €6.76 with free delivery. How do you argue with that?

Lastly, I went to a large store where I took my two purchases to the queue to pay with cash. Again, there was an issue. There were five members of staff at the tills and a queue that was moving at a snail’s pace. The self-service card only section had absolutely nobody in the queue.

I gave in as time was against me; I left the cash queue and paid by card.

It’s all well and good to be principled and want to use cash where possible, but if it is more convenient for the store for you to use a card, and if prices online continue to often be staggeringly cheaper than those at the physical till, how are we supposed to continue treating cash as King?

There is of course the other side of this coin. Pun intended.

On a recent trip to the pub I saw a group of ladies enjoying a night out. They had a cash kitty in the middle of the table and took it in turns to go to the counter. When the cash was gone, the tap tap tapping began.

The cards were being whipped out at great speed, and flashed about with gay abandon. Any sense of keeping control on the night’s spends was gone out the window.

Constantly using a card is the same as having a tracker attached to yourself. Everything you purchase is recorded. Every move you make is traceable. That’s not a comfortable feeling for me.

Then again, I come from the generation that had the fiver squeezed into my hand by visiting relatives and thought I was the bees’ knees because of this covert transaction with a grown up.

We were the generation that would take out every penny of wages from the bank just to have it in the wallet and feel like a millionaire when counting it out for the umpteenth time on the kitchen table.

You don’t get that feeling with a piece of plastic, and you certainly can’t overspend if you only use cash, but you miss out on the online bargains without a card.

So, I suppose you need a healthy balance of both, and a relative that will still squeeze a fiver into your hand at Christmas, because that’s priceless.