Life Without Cash

One of my colleagues challenged me that my wish of a cashless society mentioned in this post is nothing but a mirage. Then they also challenged me that I should try and live without cash for a week and then talk again on the topic

My defense was that I never said I want a cashless society, I just want big currency notes for 500 and 1000 to be banned and government should encourage and incentivize use of check, credit card or debit card.

Any ways I decided to accept the challenge being a sucker for challenges related to money matters.

So I decided to live for a week without cash, and decided to use only credit or debit card or check to make all payments.

At this stage I would like to share my experience in USA almost 10 years ago. I was out on lunch with a colleague in a mall near Los Angeles. It was a self service place and we have filled our plate with food, when we placed our order at the counter he gave his VISA Platinum card to the cashier. The cashier mentioned that they are cash only place and we need to place. My colleague a fairly rich guy had all of $ 5 in his wallet but the bill was around 12 dollars, I offered to pay cash as I had cash with me. He was actually very surprised that the cashier did not accepted credit cards, to this the cashier mentioned that they have recently opened and the place still did not had capability to accept cash. Then he pointed us to a small notice that boldly displayed “CASH ONLY”. As I had already taken some bites from the chips and had a few sips from the cola standing in the queue, returning the food was out of question. All my please to pay were not accepted by my colleague and he wanted to meet the manager of the joint. The manager promptly appeared and on hearing our plight and trying to save my colleague embarrassment in front of a visiting Alien he offered a solution that he would accept a personal check provided my friend can show him a valid ID. This saved the situation as my colleague was carrying his check book in the briefcase with him. So he promptly showed his California Drivers License and cut the check in name of the food joint.

We had our lunch and I listened to a big lecture how stupid for the joint to open without having capability of accepting credit cards.He mentioned that he uses credit card for almost every thing and pays on time thus having no need to carry any cash. 

This was 10 years ago.

Thanks for reading, would love to hear from you. In one of the next posts I will write about my life without cash for a week in India.