By Dave Dunleavy
I’ve got a radical idea to try to pull the vast majority of people out of debt. This might sound ludicrous and downright crazy but why don’t we make everyone pay in cash for what they buy. Yes cash.
Think of cash as a history lesson. Quick, what president is on the $10 bill. Okay, how about the $20 bill. See, it’ll be like playing Jeopardy. Maybe this line of questioning is a bit unfair since you don’t see the pictures of any presidents on a Visa, Mastercard or American Express card. I do have a neat picture of Yankee Stadium though on my Visa card complete with Don Mattingly’s autograph.
The cash spending plan has to be flexible. It may be too much to pay the mortgage or other utilities with cash, since those companies aren’t set up for such transactions but I’m talking about the day-to-day expenses and purchases we make. There’s just something wrong about someone pulling out a piece of plastic to buy a cup of coffee or a doughnut or a Big Mac. I like the Angus Third Pounder myself but I use cash.
The lunacy of plastic is sometimes so obvious. I was standing behind a guy in line at a convenience store the other day who decides to swipe his card to buy a pack of gum. The customer was taken aback when the clerk told him the purchase wasn’t enough to warrant the use of his card. Sorry, store policy.
I felt sorry for the guy and was about to offer to buy him the gum (spearmint, my favorite) when I decided it was best if he went home and learned once again what actual money looked like. I figured it had been a while since he held a real quarter in his hand or better yet remembered what Thomas Jefferson looked like.
Those guys were real heroes, the Lincolns, Franklins and Jeffersons (I loved George and Wheezie). They’re all there in green-and-white in your wallets. But it seems as if most people don’t carry around money these days and that’s the trouble. If you had to actually pay for something with good old cash, it would be harder to part with your money. It would cut out a lot of discretionary buying. Yes, paying with cash actually makes people think about what they’re buying. Imagine that.
If you had a wad of cash in your pocket it wouldn’t disappear so easily. With a plastic card there’s no thought to it. Just take it out, swipe it and the world is at your command. You don’t have to worry about seeing a wad of bills becoming thinner by the hour because you just went on a shopping spree to buy shoes (my wife has 45 pair) or clothes that are just piled into the closet with the other clothes you bought the previous week when you went on your last spree.
A sale is only a sale if you actually need to buy something. If you have to part with your cash, chances are you won’t buy something just because it’s on sale. I’ve always wondered why Americans work so hard for their money and then are so eager to spend it. Sort of defeats the purpose of working hard doesn’t it? Sorry, I’m sounding too practical again and there isn’t a lot of room for that when talking about American spending habits.
But we need to change. Americans save less than 3 percent of their take home pay. Why? The Almighty Plastic. No one keeps track of what they buy if they’re swiping their credit/debit card. It’s impossible. Because if you’re not diligent about what you buy you’re not going to be diligent keeping track of it. And come on, tell the truth, you don’t want to know the truth because you can’t handle the truth.
That’s why opening credit cards bills are reserved for special occasions. No one gets their credit card bill and opens it immediately. Why? Because you don’t want to know how much you’ve spent. You’ll stick that bill on the counter behind the phone and wait until a particularly brave moment when you’ve had a few glasses of red wine in you and then the moment will come. It won’t be pretty. They’ll be plenty of kicking and screaming and yelling, accompanied by crying, a mild breakdown and some drooling.
All this could have been avoided if you paid in cash. Bring back cash and it’ll keep more money in our pockets and bank accounts For many young Americans this is something new and I understand that. They’ve been brought up on plastic and plastic is king until the end of the month when the statement of charges arrives. And of course the late fees.
Yes, the late fees. They’re the best. You didn’t think some mega-bank was going to extend your credit line for nothing. Certainly not. They have expenses to pay too, such as huge bonuses to keep key executives in place, who are running the company into the ground. They need you to cover those costs and to continue paying with plastic. Don’t you see? They know you’ll never learn.
But this is a time to fight back, to use money you can actually touch. We can turn the tide and make for a better America. And yes, you can still have it all or at least a little bit. At the end of the day, when the bills are all paid you’ll still have enough cash to buy that pack of spearmint gum.
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