Life without Cash. Part 1

Could you live and function without cash, do you still write cheques? Is your mattress stuffed with £20 ,and £50 notes, saved religiously for a rainy day? These are questions that are being discussed more and more each day.

A few months ago, I and my wife were in London to have dinner with my son and his wife, and on the wall of the restaurant was a huge notice declaring that cash was no longer accepted.

These days with Covid 19 running riot through the World, even fewer places are now accepting cash, CASH IS DIRTY is the mantra. So how long will it be before cash disappears, relegated to memories and bottoms of the kitchen junk drawer.

Do you remember the days gone by when as a child you would be given a coin to put in your piggy-bank, or as some people do, put all the silver coins in the change into a jar towards Christmas, or a holiday, or just as a way to save money for special something you always wanted.

Without cash the only way to save and spend will be to have a bank account, no matter what age you are.

Now some may say that giving a child a bank account is a wonderful idea, helping them to understand how to manage their money later in life and work towards that ever so important credit rating. But there is a drawback in that scenario - the tax man, he will want to know where little Johny's £20 came from, was it just a gift, or was it Grandpa's way of diverting untaxed income.

Some organisations would welcome a cashless society, and that would be mainly Law Enforcement agencies and Inland Revenue. One of societies greatest debilitating activities is illegal consumption of narcotics, mostly paid for by cash created from various forms of crime. Prostitution is funded by a steady flow of cash, slave wages are mostly in the form of cash, if they are paid anything at all.

But there is a down side to having no cash, and I will discuss this in tomorrow's blog.

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