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Cash vs card — how much cash do you actually carry these days?

Ben Carter ⭐ Helpful member
7 Aug 2026, 11:08

A small question that has become a running joke in our house. Before we moved, I hadn't carried cash in years. In the UK everything was contactless, and Sue used to tease me that I'd forgotten what coins looked like.

Then we moved to a village in Portugal. The café takes cash only. The man who sells eggs at the market takes cash only. The builder who fixed our roof would take a bank transfer "if we insisted", with a look that made clear we shouldn't insist. Meanwhile the supermarket, the pharmacy and the petrol station are perfectly happy with cards. So now I carry a wallet again, and I've become the kind of man who keeps coins in a little dish by the door.

How is it where you live? Do you carry cash, and how much, roughly? Has anyone moved the other way, from a cash culture to somewhere that won't accept it at all? And is there an etiquette I'm missing, like whether it's rude to pay a small bill with a card?

10 replies

Nomvula Dlamini 💬 Contributor
7 Aug 2026, 21:37

Opposite problem in the Netherlands. I tried to pay with a banknote at a train station machine and it looked at me like I'd offered it a goat. Some shops here don't take cash at all. I haven't carried any since March.

Kwame Mensah 🏆 Community expert
8 Aug 2026, 17:19

UAE is mostly card now, but I keep a little cash for tips and the small shops in the older areas.

Paolo Bianchi ⭐ Helpful member
9 Aug 2026, 06:09

Ireland is tap everything. I don't think I've touched a coin since the spring.

Linda Svensson ⭐ Helpful member
11 Aug 2026, 11:53

We're coming from Sweden, where almost nobody uses cash any more, to Spain, where from what we saw on our visits the small places still prefer it. I suspect I'll be the one learning to count coins again, like Ben. Our daughter already laughs at the idea of me with a coin purse.

Chloé Tremblay 🌱 Newcomer
18 Aug 2026, 02:27

Japan is the place for this question! I arrived assuming a tech-forward country would be card everywhere, and my first week I couldn't pay at half the small restaurants near my school. Cards are much more common in the cities now, and the transit cards work in lots of shops, but I still carry cash every day. People here carry more cash than I ever did at home in Montreal, and nobody finds it strange. The etiquette part is real too: there's a little tray at the till where you put the money instead of handing it over, which I only learned after trying to hand it to the cashier for a week 😅

Ben Carter ⭐ Helpful member
19 Aug 2026, 15:23

Chloé, the little tray! I'd have handed it over for a year. Also, I feel much better about my dish of coins now.

Siobhán O'Connell 🌱 Newcomer
20 Aug 2026, 14:23

Abu Dhabi: cards everywhere, cash only for the car wash guy. Every system has its one exception.

Grace Kim 🏆 Community expert
22 Aug 2026, 07:00

France still loves a cheque for some things, which blew my mind as someone from Korea.

Helga Larsen ⭐ Helpful member
24 Aug 2026, 07:33

Same as Ben on the Spanish side. Card at the supermarket, cash at the market and the café. You learn quickly which is which.

Tomasz Nowak ⭐ Helpful member
27 Aug 2026, 05:58

netherlands, zero cash. my grandmother would be horrified