A final note
What’s in your wallet? Do you even know where it is? I stuck a bank card in my pocket in March last year; since then, I’ve pretty much given up on using the card, too. For the purposes of this exercise, I found and checked my wallet: there’s a £5 note (about $7) I accidentally ripped in half years ago, folded up very small, plus 38p. “The £20 I’ve had since I was sent home from work on 27 March 2020,” says one friend, fairly typically. “The same £10 I’ve had in my purse for over a year.” “£10.70 – the last of the £50 I took out at the beginning of first lockdown.”
When did you last use cash? For me, it was a cucumber plant two months ago. The plant guy is one of the few hold-outs among the off-grid types at the local “food circle” market – every kale-selling hippy has a sleek contactless terminal. We keep coins for supermarket trolleys, occasional parking, and some window cleaners who are wedded to cash. These and tipping – many of us don’t trust big companies to distribute digital tips fairly, with some justification – are the few remaining pockets of cash use among my friends and acquaintances.
This anecdotal stuff is backed by hard fact: cash payments fell by 35% in 2020 in the UK and five in six payments are cashless.
