A few years ago, Vineeta and I went to a cafe in Amsterdam and were intrigued to find that they didn't accept cash. They had a sign behind the counter that explained that card payments were more convenient, more hygienic, and pose less of a security risk than cash. This made perfect sense to me and got me quite excited about the idea of a cashless future. It seemed so modern!
One of my favourite yet. I have a very poor and triggering relationship as it is with money, and my Mum having her house repossessed by the bank in the 90s. She ran her own taxi business. She now lives in a council flat, luckily she got somewhere. Over the years of Leap I've done many skill trades where finance wasn't involved. However as our team grew it becomes harder almost impossible. It is really interesting on how we could do this easily in business. I tend to pay with cash to small independents. My favourite everlasting wallet is by Elvis and Kresse of course, I love a good wallet, and you know the origins.
Like you, I've not carried cash for some time now, to the extent that I was actually surprised to find myself with change on me to give to a homeless person in London this weekend. It reminded me of reading this in my inbox.
I've had several discussions with small business owners about card versus cash payments in recent months. A couple have been stung by unexpected card processing fees or increases in fees, which has also got me thinking about how I can better support my local businesses.
Today, the main provider of fibre broadband where I live has had an outage all day, and 4G backups don't appear to be working, which has meant several local businesses have only been able to accept cash payments as their card machines have been rendered useless. Fragile.
It seems that every day I find new reasons to believe that a sustainable future is one that is responsive to as many possibilities / preferences as possible, rather than one that banks on one "right way" to do something. Diversity.
Thanks Jon, yeah I have also been observing the dynamics with different businesses since I wrote this and the fragility aspect is interesting. Ironically, my local post office where a lot of people get their cash, seems to have terrible luck with internet outages, though they do still accept cash during these periods even if they can't dispense it. As you say, diversity = resilience.
One of my favourite yet. I have a very poor and triggering relationship as it is with money, and my Mum having her house repossessed by the bank in the 90s. She ran her own taxi business. She now lives in a council flat, luckily she got somewhere. Over the years of Leap I've done many skill trades where finance wasn't involved. However as our team grew it becomes harder almost impossible. It is really interesting on how we could do this easily in business. I tend to pay with cash to small independents. My favourite everlasting wallet is by Elvis and Kresse of course, I love a good wallet, and you know the origins.
Like you, I've not carried cash for some time now, to the extent that I was actually surprised to find myself with change on me to give to a homeless person in London this weekend. It reminded me of reading this in my inbox.
I've had several discussions with small business owners about card versus cash payments in recent months. A couple have been stung by unexpected card processing fees or increases in fees, which has also got me thinking about how I can better support my local businesses.
Today, the main provider of fibre broadband where I live has had an outage all day, and 4G backups don't appear to be working, which has meant several local businesses have only been able to accept cash payments as their card machines have been rendered useless. Fragile.
It seems that every day I find new reasons to believe that a sustainable future is one that is responsive to as many possibilities / preferences as possible, rather than one that banks on one "right way" to do something. Diversity.
Thanks Jon, yeah I have also been observing the dynamics with different businesses since I wrote this and the fragility aspect is interesting. Ironically, my local post office where a lot of people get their cash, seems to have terrible luck with internet outages, though they do still accept cash during these periods even if they can't dispense it. As you say, diversity = resilience.
Great post!
Thanks Matt. I really appreciate you sharing some personal experiences here. I’ll check out the Elvis and Kresse wallets 😁