Jolt Country

TWICE this weekend I needed cash and didn't have it.

There was a "cash only $3 cover" at some bar we all went to Saturday.

At the City of the Dead Haunted House, I was gonna buy a round of drinks for my friends and they only took cash.

I really gotta keep a $20 in my wallet for such occasions. Jolt Country Denizens, how much cash do YOU keep on you?

(Frank Reynolds from Always Sunny in Philadelphia keeps $500, according to the latest episode.)

I will not be humiliated again!!

I hardly ever carry cash, mostly because I will spend it on stupid shit if I have it on hand. I should clarify, I don't usually carry more than five dollars at a time.



THE
LIQUID ASSETS
AARDVARK

Yeah, that's why I don't carry it either. I fritter it away.

I... I guess it is time to STOP frittering it. I felt like such an asshole. My gal sprung for that stupid cover to that stupid bar. Now granted, I spend the shit out of my card otherwise, so it's not a money thing, it's just the concept of it.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I really gotta keep a $20 in my wallet for such occasions. Jolt Country Denizens, how much cash do YOU keep on you?

Back before I had ATM and credit cards and was working, I probably routinely carried a couple hundred on me. I routinely went out to the Outback Steakhouse in Waldorf every Sunday and drop about $30 or so so I had to carry money for that.

Now that I have an ATM/check card and a credit card - plus I don't have a lot of money, seeing as how I'm on a fixed income from my disability pension - I usually carry about $20, mostly so that I don't end up having to pay service charges to take money out if I couldn't get to my bank's ATM or a store that offered cash with purchase on debit card transactions, and occasionally I need to make small purchases using cash, such as paying for use of a laundromat, buying a hot dog from a street vendor, etc.

I keep cash as I need it, but sometimes I can be surprised. I went to buy some food and such of about $68 at Target the other day, and found my credit card was maxed out. As it turned out, my sister had given me $20 to do something and I'd made $10 from some notary jobs where people came to see me (I have a free ad in Google's yellow pages), and I had about $10 left over, so I was surprised to discover I had $60 in cash on me. The clerk suggested using that, then run the charge for $8. That worked.

I now have $1 in cash on me plus whatever is left on my ATM card - probably about $9 - and whatever is left on my credit card - obviously less than $50 - which has to last me until the 3rd. (I've got plenty of food so I'm not in trouble; I probably need to spend money to buy another fix err I mean some more Mountain Dew. Or maybe I was right the first time.) This does not count the $500 or so I have in my credit union, that I would have to physically go in there to get to it. But, that's the whole point; it's just inconvenient enough that I've really got to need it to go over there.

For the past month I've had $1 in my wallet, along with some change. (I keep my spare change in my wallet; it's a long story.)

My wife handles all the bills and I get a biweekly "allowance". That allowance is my money to do whatever I want with. I can save it, spend it, give it away or burn it. It's mine, set aside for me.

I have two cards* in my wallet: my debit card and my credit card. The debit card goes to our credit union account and has a picture of an American flag and a jet fighter on it. The credit card is a limited edition Star Wars Darth Vader card. My wife and I have an understanding that whatever charges I put on the debit card are things I do not expect to come out of my allowance -- things like meals or groceries or gasoline. We budget for that stuff. Charges on the Darth Vader Credit Card are assumed to be paid out of my allowance. When I buy tools, or pay for my usenet service, or buy half a million floppy disks to back up my mp3 collection, I use the credit card.

This is a pretty good system for us that allows us to track who is spending what, where, and for what purpose. Cash really just messes it all up and makes it harder to track. Plus, like ICJ said, I can put $200 in my pocket and spend it in a week and not have any idea where it went.

(*Yes, Captain Literal, I have more than two cards in my wallet. That was just for the sake of conversation.)

I think it's amusing that It's easier to just give the wives' all the money and then we (teh guys) don't have to think about it.
It's one of those things that we COULD do if threatened with a cattle prod or something but would prefer not to do because our brains are already processing way too many other issues.




THE
OVERCLOCKED
AARDVARK

STRAIGHT CASH HOMEY

I take $30 out of the ATM and try to get it to last the better part of a week, using it for cash-only expenses or occasionally for small expenses I don't want to enter into my checkbook program later on.

I'll have more cash if I'm going on a trip or to some outing with undetermined expenses. I usually overestimate, though, so the days after these things are a bit of a surreal wow-I-have-lots-of-cash-on-me daze.

I always carry at least 80, probably a couple hundred, because no matter what happens or where we go I can pay without the whole psychotic card-splitting thing that EVERYONE I KNOW has to do because they have less than a dollar on them. Ever watch somebody try to buy a burrito with a discover card? FUCK YOU BUDDY.

I realize it's too much and I'm making myself a mugger's dream, but since I typically only spend it at the bar anyways it tends to last awhile, and dressing like a hobo deters anyone thinking of robbing me.

A few years ago David Copperfield fooled a mugger using slight of hand, making the mugger think his pockets were empty.

I'd practice that one a long time before performing it on the street with a gun to your head.