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Comment by bern4444 | Hacker News Reader

I've always thought the opposite.

When I pay for something with cash I remember it far more strongly than when I pay with card. I pay with a card all the time and the action is the same no matter the price. I tap it and move on.

With cash I remember having to go get the cash, counting out the right amount at the register, and physically handing it over. And then I notice its absence since now I gave up all the cash I had and need to go to the ATM again. I see and feel the loss more strongly.

You actually lose something physical when you pay with cash unlike with a card. Especially if its a large purchase, I feel the cash loss harder and remember it longer - hard to forget handing over several bills ($50+) for those expensive transactions.

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I'll say this, spending cash is harder in the moment. There's a real visceral feeling of loss when handing over actual cash vs card.

However, when it comes to tracking long term? Cash always seemed to just ...evaporate, out of my wallet where as I can look back and see my credit card purchases and go 'why did I spend that much on that?!'

In my experience, there are two types of people when it comes to money. There are spenders, who could usually stand to cut back, and savers, who could stand to loosen up. I'm definitely in the 'could stand to loosen up' camp. I even went so far a set aside a 'fun money' budget but it mostly goes unspent because my frugality has no chill...

This is it exactly - if I spend $2k on an item, I'm going to remember that if it was cash or card, but only card tells me "you spend $2k last month at Walmart".

so the benefit is that paying by card makes tracking your expenses easier.

but the downside is that it also makes makes profiling easier for anyone who can get access to your bank statements which not only includes the bank but more critically also walmart or any other place where you shop regularly.

i rather track my spending manually. there are tools that can help with that too, like receipt scanners. granted, it's more work, so one needs to weigh the options. for me though, supermarkets are the last place that i want to be able to track my shopping because most of it happens there.

The challenge of course, is it's easy to lose or misplace receipts, etc.

Some of us have issues with (essentially) self sabotage that way. Some of us have also had issues with people in our lives not so accidentally sabotaging (or stealing) things that way. Come to think of it, I don't know any long term married couples that didn't have one of the two do SOMETHING like that at some point.

The nice thing (or terrible, if you're worried about privacy) about credit cards is you can go back as long as you need and figure out what money went where, from whom.

When cash is gone, it's gone. If someone has to provide receipts/prove expenses to get more, that can be managed. If someone can just pull it out, less so.

Pros and cons either way, of course.

well, it depends on how you look at it, no matter how much you deceive yourself (or your partner), in the end it only matters if you spend above or below your means. if you spent to much it doesn't really matter where the money went in the past, you need to fix the spending in the future. finding who or what to blame is only half the problem. either you both agree to manage finances or you don't. if you can, put some money aside in a locked savings account that noone can touch. (i had a special savings account that would only generate interest as long as i didn't touch it, but kept paying into it regularly). that's a good way to prevent money from disappearing.

Ah, sweet summer child. The problem cases almost always agree to manage finances together and be reasonable!

The money still disappears.

No records just makes it easier to be gaslit, or blamed by the actual perpetrator in a court of law.

At least when it’s recorded by a third party it’s harder to bullshit about. Two separate friends of mine had their spouses (when under stress) nearly bankrupt both of them using credit cards they signed up for without their knowledge.

They found them on their credit reports due to something unrelated, and at least was able to track down what had happened. Both wives had been shredding the statements. One had racked up $80k, another $70k.

Personally, I had a large and very vague amount of cash disappear (approx $10k) through likely fake expenses just before getting hit with a bunch of false accusations - when I tried to get away from an abusive ex. Considering I’d been trying to get her to sit down with me and discuss household finances for awhile and how much gaslighting and confusion she was making on the topic (and I really wish I was projecting on this), it was probably a whole lot more. But very difficult to discern.

The legal chaos she created shortly afterwards meant I never could get an answer what happened. And frankly was a drop in the bucket compared to the other damage she did.

Could have been worse - I have an acquaintance who’s husband got a HELOC on their house and then bailed with all the money before she found out. 5+ years of drama.

sure, but those are cases of outright deception, where, with a bit more energy by the deceiver, tracking expenses through the bank may not have helped. and i am sorry for what you had to go through. your experience makes me think of a discussion just a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767454

i don't know how one can protect against that. the only thing i can think of is to prevent anyone in the family from having a high credit limit. or avoid credit cards altogether. but that's much easier here where credit cards are less common.

Unfortunately, any of the protective actions one could take would be legitimately abusive and controlling against someone who ISN'T one of those messed up people. So if someone feels like they need it, either they really shouldn't be getting married to that person (but are in denial), OR they're probably a legit abusive spouse. And really shouldn't be marrying anyone.

And in most places, if you're married, legally you can't stop the partner from entering the 'community' into debt like that, or encumbering community property. So to your point, yeah it couldn't be stopped even with bank tracking. But it is harder to do that way.

The most you could do is make the responsible party take on the debt entirely on their own later when the divorce settles, but anyone likely to do this kind of BS will make that a multi-year living hell. It's rarely worth the attempt, as legal fees will often far outweigh any money recovered.

There is a reason that 99% of family law attorneys will tell men to just not get married. For guys, 99% of them will also tell them to just not let women live with them (due to various ways THAT is often used against men), etc. Pre-nups are important and can reduce the damage, but are not bullet proof.

For women, the system does generally favor them - but they can and will be drug through hell if they end up with a problem spouse too. And can end up with life altering debt (problem gamblers being a common pattern), abusive partners they can't get rid of, etc. They're more likely to be murdered in a bad situation too, by a long shot.

If someone has an actual reasonable spouse (and is actually reasonable) but want to get divorced, then it's actually not that big a deal and it can be resolved relatively quickly. And that does happen. But for the most part, most of those people don't end up needing the system anyway - as both people are actually reasonable.

And people who aren't from backgrounds that result in them being blind to signs of real problem behaviors usually see and avoid the really dangerous people anyway before they can get their hooks in.

The best prevention frankly is having two loving, stable parents who raised someone well, to have not been abused as a child, and to be nurtured, etc.. So that someone knows what 'good' feels like, has reasonable role models that cover the common gender setups and models healthy behaviors, etc. It's far from foolproof though, and those situations are actually quite rare. What is common is setups that LOOK like that, but are actually deeply screwed up when you're inside - but in ways the participants can't or won't see.

Folks with NPD, ASPD, and other Cluster B personalities in particular are powerfully manipulative and destructive, and can pretend to be really amazing and wonderful until you're already 'stuck'. Co-dependent behavior is rampant. Etc.

We can't be that far from the facial recognition in stores/at registers building that same profile for cash customers :(

true, but laws making that illegal are also being considered at least in some places, which means awareness of the dangers does exist

It’s still socially acceptable to wear a face mask in public

not everywhere. at least some european countries and aparently some places in the US too ban the wearing of facemasks, some only on large public assemblies and some ban it in general. covid of course made mockery of those laws.

I definitely feel the "frugality has no chill" attitude. I describe it, charitably, as being an extremely content person. The downside is that there are plenty of things that I could point at that would make my life somewhat better ( replacing my 30 year old Honda with a Tesla or something would definitely save me time on maintenance, for example). The upside is that when something does pass my high bar of "willing to spend money on it", I rarely have to worry about being able to afford it.

Conscious spending could help out both camps. Spenders tend to spend too much on things that don't matter to them, and savers spend too little on things that matter to them.

The problem is conscious spending requires more initial setup that a lot of people don't want to do. They don't want to look at their bills and tally up the monthly total, automating that to be paid first, and then looking at their savings/investing/donation goals and taxes/limitations and dedicating certain amounts next per month. That's all too much initial work for them, but once you're on the other side it's glorious. I see how much is in my spending account, and spend it freely if whatever it is matters to me more than just the thrill of spending.

So many are just not honest with themselves and what actually matters to them. They have a huge house not because it makes them happy but because it's what they feel pressured to have. But this is a trick, remaining in this state winds up burning you out so much faster because you are not nourishing what your soul wants. What they actually would rather be doing is travelling the world, and yet they only put aside 1% monthly to a travel fund, and 70% goes to a home they don't care about. They wind up never travelling because they distract themselves with irrelevant things, get burned out at their job, feel like moving cities, etc. It happens all the time!

To make this clear, this isn't about downsizing. If a big home does matter to you, that should obviously take a much larger portion of your monthly bills. But you can't make these decisions without going through that above work honestly.

This is literally me. I am a spendthrift with cash, even though most of my purchases would be cheap consumables and perishables - but still I hyper-analyze deciding whether to buy or not.

On the other hand, when I pay by card, I don't analyze the buying decision much, even though it's likely a big purchase.

Lose-lose either way. I had to put a personal limit on the amount of cash and accessible money on cards I hold on my person because of this.

I'm from Norway, where cash is rare these days. But I feel similar, it's a lot more obvious how much you pay when you need to count bills and hand them over.

As a compromise I only keep a small amount of money on my debit card. That way I have to keep topping it up, so I get a sense of my spending that way.

I keep two accounts for my payroll deposits... one which is my day to day usage (fuel, food, entertainment, etc) and the other where bills get paid from. I also keep my large bills and credit cards not autopay. So I have to actually go in at least once a month to pay the mortgage, car payments, and pay off CC. It helps for awareness, but not actively tracking sometimes makes it surprising how much gets spent in a month.

Also from Norway. Haven't paid cash in ~10 years. I have no idea how the new currency looks like. I lost my wallet at some point, and just never replaced it. I pay with my Garmin watch (or phone once in a while). My driver's license is an app.

you have a "high trust" and "wealthy" country -- good for you. Not everyone lives like that.

Here in the USA, tracking people for profit has exploded, and the benefit is not for the person being tracked.

I advocate cash for old reasons, and new reasons. Use high-tech payments if you like -- do not think they can be mandatory here in the USA.

> do not think they can be mandatory here in the USA.

I sure hope not, but there's been quite a lot of things that have been on the "could never happen here" list that have in fact happened. I have no faith that eliminating cash is inconceivable.

The point is that once your memory fades, that's it. Unless you took a receipt, kept it, don't lose it, AND have a reason to look at it, the purchase will essentially have never happened. If it's on a card it's on that statement forever.

That was my take as well... when I was younger and paid for nearly everything in cash... I'd literally see the amount in my wallet go down, and have to think twice on everything. I was so much more aware of the fuel I was buying, how much I would or wouldn't spend eating out, grocery shopping etc. Now it feels like sticker shock each month when I pay everything off... "how did I spend that much." I think the article makes a lot of conclusions that my own experience would indicate the opposite.

I wonder if part of this is a function of time passing / getting older rather than purely cash vs not.

I can't speak for all, but I came from a lower/lower-middle income family... when I was in my later teens, I generally didn't hold a lot of money to trust in debit purchases not overdrawing. Didn't even have a CC until I was nearly 30yo.

Yes. Some experiences need friction. For example I do not automate any bills. Each of them are paid manually (with a few exceptions like subscription services)

I want to see, feel, know and understand what is happening behind the curtain when it comes to my hard earned assets.

Ehh... Ok so right at the beginning of the Ukraine War I went and pulled €9000 out of the bank (don't have to declare under €10k at Customs) and put it in an envelope labeled "SHTF” and stuck it on the pinboard. The envelope recently became empty. I can't exactly tell you what we spent it on. Not "guilty pleasures," of that I'm reasonably sure, but probably some shit we could have lived without except hey there's this mad crazy money envelope, sure why not grab a couple hundo and splurge...

Out of curiosity, how old are you? I’m in my thirties and think the same.

I don't think it's tied that much to age, but rather local culture. For example this mindset is prevalent in Germany and Switzerland to the point where many locals look at you weird when you ask them why they prefer cash. (There are other historical reasons here too, but that doesn't take away from the main point.)

> when you ask them why they prefer cash

Would they also say they spend cash more loosely than card? That's the phenomenon being described, not absolute preference.

In the conversations I've had with people from Germany and Switzerland it's the other way around, with cash they're more aware and thus more frugal with their spending.

Right. That’s what the article says. OP described an opposite reaction which I share. The hypothesis of local culture doesn’t work because the cultures you named align with the paper, which seems to be the default tendency worldwide.

As part of teaching our kids about money, I insisted on not only using physical currency for items the kids decided to purchase with "their own money", but on ringing them up in a separate transaction and having my kid actually hand over the currency and receive the change and the item. (This doesn't work for online purchasing, of course, but anything in store, we'd do this way.)

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