Common Excuses on why People Don't Use Cash

If you are just joining us be sure to check out PART 1 on Why we Decided to Pay Cash for Christmas. 

People do give me a hard time and tell me that they think I am crazy for using cash instead of Credit or Debit Cards.  That's fine, I know I am a bit crazy ;)  

Some of the excuses I get are: 

• I don't want to carry that much cash around, I could get robbed.

• I get that but I am not carrying that much cash. Most people don't carry cash to begin with so the likeliness of people thinking you have cash is very small. I also shop throughout the year because I have the Cash Envelope and have a "budget" for it. 

• The other reason I would gamble with carrying cash over cards is all the security issues we are seeing. Last week Kmart announced that they detected a data breach and certain customers' credit card and debit card information may have been hacked. How many times is this going to happen?  Last year, we saw this with Target and Home Depot.  These are all stores I personally shop at and I am sure a lot of you do too.  

• I pay my credit cards off every month

• I did too but it was really eye opening the first month when we went "cash only" that we were a month behind. We had to pay off the credit cards while finding money to pay for groceries and everything else that came during the month.  

• I get rewards on my credit cards and I "need" them. 

• I have credit cards that have rewards points/ airline miles etc too but that is not enough for me anymore to put my family in jeopardy.  If something happens and we don't pay it off every month we can be getting ourselves into a lot of trouble.  Last year my husband lost his job and was not able to find work for 6 months. What if we had that extra stress of credit cards hanging over us.  I am sure we would have had to be admitted to the loony bin. 

I know this is not for everyone and you might not agree with me and that is fine.  My goal is to be debt free and these are the steps we are taking to be there.

What steps are you taking or need to take to change your financial future?

Want some additional ideas? Join us in the Debt Free Christmas. This is where we are coming up with different ways to save money now so that we are having an amazing Christmas or Vacation and now paying for it later.