money saving tips
This may sound odd but cash can actually save you money. We live in a world of plastic, a world where almost all financial transactions are carried out by computers – and we tell the computers what to do by using little plastic cards
This is all very convenient – and these cards certainly have their place, as we’ll see later. But they can also make things more expensive. It turns out that spending cash can actually save you money.
Cash is Money Not Plastic
The thing about having actual money in your pockets rather than a plastic card is that it is real money. We’re not talking about what the bank tells you etc, cold hard cash is money that is accepted almost anywhere. You know where you stand with it. Importantly you also know how much of it you have.
Too many people end up going over their overdraft limits and so paying fees because they forgot what money they have in the bank. What money they have going in and out, what their money is doing. Everything is automated for our convinced – but then so is billing us when we get it wrong. If you use cash to pay for everything you can’t be caught out by such automation problems.
You are also far less likely to spend money you don’t have. And remember that is what you are doing any time you use your overdraft or credit card, you are spending other people’s money on the promise that you will pay them back. That can be dangerous. It is all too easy to promise that you will pay back money that you later can’t afford. With cash if you have it then you can spend it – but you can’t get in trouble with it.
By having cash in your pockets you also can limit your spending. By only taking out as much cash with you as you need – and no means for getting more, you ensure that you can’t go over whatever budget you have set yourself. It makes sticking to whatever financial plan you have set yourself far easier to manage.
Emergencies
Of course that is not to say the debt cards and credit cards don’t have their place – in fact they do. If you are going somewhere you don’t know having access to your money from any cash-point can be useful if you get into any trouble… you know you can always get hold of money in an emergency.
As we said it is also convenient, never has this been more apparent than travelling abroad. No more travellers checks or expensive exchanges – you can use the ATM’s from the country that you are visiting.
Such plastic also allows you to shop from a distance – catalogue, internet, over the phone or whatever. You can spend the money how you want to.
But it is all that convenience that makes these plastic spending buddies so expensive in the first place. Yes they are convenient, but you will save money by using cash.
