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I shut down my PayPal account after many years because of their increasingly questionable business practices and apparent general software incompetence.

I strongly advise not carrying around lots of cash, especially within the U.S. Legal or not, you'll be an automatic target of Civil Asset Forfeiture from corrupt police. A lot of people use Amazon gift cards. There's also always crypto.

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> I strongly advise not carrying around lots of cash,

It's a dumb idea to carry loads of cash for many reasons, but this shouldn't dissuade you from using physical cash as a tool for many day-to-day purchases.

While it has some bad properties (can be lost/stolen/damaged, can't be transmitted digitally, government can inflate it at will) it also has some properties that are also very valuable (relatively private, easy to trade and interact with compared to crypto and other forms of money, and can be relied on when the power goes out)

Sure, agreed. But a few hundred bucks in cash (maybe) is extremely unlikely to be CAFed, exactly because everyone would see it for naked armed robbery by cops. But the cops count on the unusual individual carrying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, knowing they can get away it.

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