Plastic Or Cash.

I've often thought about this, too. Seems like 85-90% of the places I go to accept plastic, so the need for cash is dwindling.

I also am amazed that with us using plastic so much more as a society, that there is still such large numbers of coins produced each year. I would have thought that mintages would have started declining maybe 5-10 years ago. But other than halves, mintages of the common coins are roughly the same I think.

You are now coming into the future of the monitary system. Your far from being alone not using money anymore. My Son, for an example, never carries cash of any kind. Learned that in college. Everything there was basically done without cash. The book stores, cafateria, etc all used a plastic card system. It is becoming difficult to find a place that does not take plastic anymore. We have toll roads here and they have slowly eliminated the tool booths with what is called IPASS. You prepay, get a thing for your car, as you go through it automatically deducts a cost. If you insist on paying cash, it is doubled. All food stores, restaurants, department stores, gas stations, etc. also take plastic. Gambling establishments have mostly gone to plastic. When my Son gets gas he just waves a card at the pump. Doesn't even have to go inside.
With the ever growing intercontinental trading of merchandise, eventually all monitary transactions will have to be done via a computerize card system. Constantly attempting to figure out the changing of a dollar to a dinar or something will become an outdated sort of transaction. In the near future you will buy something made in some other country, use a plastic card, it will automatically deduct that amount required in that country's monitary systems equivalent.
Eventually the names of things like dollars, cents, dinars, pesos, etc will be someting you see in a museum or a collectors house.
In the near future you will hear a kid say "Hey Granpa, what was that stuff you people used to use to buy stuff called MONEY?"

I know that some folks collect old phone card some in the pass had sport star's on them

It is just too easy to use plastic these days, which has been bad for me since it has limited my collecting from circulation.

I try to use the card whenever possible, even to pay bills. Those airline miles and cash rebates come in handy.

That automatically makes you a male. Females have absolutely no problem buying even a pack of gum with a check or credit card. I've seen so many purchases in places like Walmart or Kmart where some lady buys some candy or gum and uses a personal check or credit card. And for some reason it always happens in front of me when I have something in my cart that needs refrigeration. If it's a check then they have to show identification and occationally call a head cashier. I sometimes think it's a plot to irritate us older people.

Wow, I must really be out of touch, I haven't had a credit card since July of '98. I am a cash and carry person. I have a checking visa for an emergency, otherwise I don't really use that either.

Until we all have the devices the ferengi on star trek carry, where the transaction is entered and then use your thumb print for a signature, and then that data goes into a global data bank, cash will always have a place in society. Try using a credit card at a garage sale or similar situation.

All this card use costs us money. The merchant has to pay a fee every time you use it. Guess who he/she passes the cost on to... Could you imagine the infrastructure cost of going completely cashless like in star trek... If it is windows based and crashes, then what..?

I'm not real comfortable with my life savings consisting of nothing but 1's & 0's in a computor chip somewhere in cyber space. To easy for nefarious things to happen. In a nation where the banks and government have become one and the same. A nation of the banks, by the banks, for the banks. I'll pass.

I'm going to be the contrarian.., Cash is King!