1) Who cares if it’s slower, the people standing in line behind me? They can continue to impatiently overspend while I’m comfortable knowing for certain that I’m not buying anything I can’t afford.

2) Yes, it only costs $10 to replace a card, but that’s not taking into account the potential fraudulent transactions that are charged on the lost or stolen card. You can say it holds no value without the cardholder, but in the past 12 years of using a credit card or bankcard I have had only about half of the cashiers ask me for ID or even look at the name on the card.

3) I’ve tried a couple of times to use a bank statement as proof of purchase, and it almost never works. Stores want a store-issued receipt that is itemized and that they can verify in their system, not a printout from your bank’s website that can be altered.

4) You can track your spending with cash as well, it just requires a bit more time and work. When it comes to financial stability, the extra effort is rarely wasted.

All that being said, I should admit that I’m playing devil’s advocate a bit. I tend to use my checkcard to pay for purchases, but not without being aware of my budget and the limits of my spending. Using credit cards I got myself into tens of thousands of dollars of debt and only recently rid myself of the shackles — if I had been buying on a cash basis it never would have happened!

$0.02

My wife and I moved to an almost cash-only system one year ago. I resisted, because I thought it would be so inconvenient, but I love it now! We know how much cash we need for our various categories, and when I go to the grocery store and make large purchases, the handling of all the twenties shows me what we’re spending. That’s now the feeling of freedom I prefer — the freedom of knowing that we’re spending money we’ve budgeted and already have.

By the way, one of the few places where we still use credit cards is at gas stations. Paying at the pump is a whole lot quicker, and we fill up every time, anyway, so we wouldn’t save anything by paying cash.

Compare this to the card, I press E for Electronic transaction, it loads the amount onto the swipe pad, shows you the ammount being charged, you swipe your card and put in your pin – DONE

2)
If I lose my card, it costs $10 to replace.
If i lose $100 of cash, it lose $100.

You can’t steal a card, it holds no value without the card holder.
You can steal cash.

Other benefits:

1) If you pay for something on card and lose the recepit, you can prove your purchase with your transaction history (often free online)

if you pay cash, and lose your receipt, you have no evidence you bought that item from the shop.

2) Cards let you track your spending. You can see everywhere you spent your money in a month, rather then just one big withdrawel of cash.