Cash vs. credit purchases

While I spent yesterday, a rainy day, sorting photos and putting them into files...at least there are some sane people in this world.

Sometimes a Facebook post makes sense

Sharing this today on both my blogs!

 

"I have really never thought of this has anyone else?

Please understand what NOT

using cash is doing.

Cash is important.

Why should we pay cash everywhere we can

with banknotes instead of a credit card?

- I have a $50 banknote in my pocket.

Going to a restaurant and paying for dinner with it. The restaurant owner then uses the bill to pay for the laundry. The laundry owner then uses the bill to pay the barber. The barber will then use the bill for shopping.

After an unlimited number of payments, it will still remain a $50, which has fulfilled its purpose to everyone who used it for payment and the bank has jumped dry from every cash payment transaction made...

- But if I come to a restaurant and pay digitally - Card, and bank fees for my payment transaction charged to the seller are 3%, so around $1.50 and so will the fee $1.50 for each further payment transaction or owner re laundry or payments of the owner of the laundry shop, or payments of the barber etc.....

Therefore, after 30 transactions, the initial $50 will remain only $5 and the remaining $45 became the property of the bank thanks to all digital transactions and fees.

Small businesses need your help and this is one way to help ourselves too. Pull small draws of cash out at a time and use that instead of tap, credit, etc.

When this is put into perspective, imagine what each retailer is paying on a monthly basis in fees at 3% per transaction through their POS machine.

If they have, for example, $50,000 in sales & 90% are by Card, they are paying $1500 in fees in ONE Month. $18,000 in a year! That comes out of their income every month.

That would go a long way to help provide for their family."

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If this isn't true, please let me know and I'll either remove it, or at least include a disclaimer!

Potpourri - yes, more!

 

If you recognize this waiting area, you've been in my new bank! I was not happy with the one which bought out my local one, so I've switched to another one which has been around for a while, and I hope will continue to be here!

A colorized black and white...painted eggs, not real ones, as you can see their lengthwise seams. But these aren't the kind that had panty hose in them either, for those had seems that went around the middle at the waist, or large bellies of eggs. I wonder what material they were made from, as they do seem to be all the same size. 

I'm actually trying to figure out if I've fixed the iCloud and iPhotos problems I have been having! I found somehow the "folder is read only " had been clicked somehow in the PC for iCloud photos...which meant they wouldn't be editable. Is that related to edible? Nah. That and maybe a setting on the phone had also changed. Anyway, there are now two or three iPhotos listed in the PC, and if I'm patient, the latest photos do get posted there!

I'll drink to that!

Diet Dr. Pepper that is...

View from my desk chair...at least the rain has stopped, which started in the night.

Then on Wed. of last week, the wind was chill, as well as the nights down in the low 30s. When I stopped by the Community Garden, several plots were covered with the plastic held in place with rocks. Some looked like they had blown off the supports however. I think I shared some photos at my Living in Black Mountain blog.

Today's quote:

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age. -Sophia Loren, actor and singer (b. 20 Sep 1934) 

A credit card fiasco

Yep, skip reading this if you aren't interested in my rant of the day.

I finally took my little old car to get new shoes (er tires for those literal-minded people).  That's not the same as being liberal-minded, at all!

Got the job done in plenty of time, gave the man my credit/debit card, asked for him to swipe it as credit.  He says, hummm, and gives me a stub of a receipt saying it has no charge, try again...and there's $ 00.00 total.  So he wads up the receipt, throws it to trash can, and tries again.  Then again.  Still receipts say no money, and he tries it again.  After 4 tries, I say, try it as a debit.  And I enter my pin number.  No that doesn't work either.  So I urge him to call, and try one more time.  A 6th try doesn't work any better.  NONE of these tries says it's denied.  (I know I had plenty of money in the account, or I wouldn't have handed the guy the card.)

So he calls the credit card place that has a phone number on the back of my card.  He punches in lots of numbers...when he finally gets someone he tells them about this situation, and then I say, just let me write a check.  So I do.  And then he hangs up, never having found out what's happening.  (I had assumed he would check with the merchant's end of things, rather than my credit card company).

I then go home and go on line to verify for myself the amount of money that was in my account yesterday.  There are FOUR pending charges against my account, leaving $45 in it.  Obviously no more could go against it.

SO I get in the car and drive over to my local branch of my bank.  Kelly is nice, and says there's no way to back out those "PENDING" charges, which have eaten up all my account balance basically for TWO to THREE days.
WHAT?

They weren't even charges...I saw the "$ 00.00" amount on those receipts before he threw them away.  She suggests I go back and get the receipts, so I call the guy and say I am coming back for them (and then do so).

I ask Kelly what will happen when the check is presented and I don't have enough money in my account?  She says she'll make sure it doesn't bounce.  (There are small favors).  But I just lost all my money to a system...and just have enough to get gas, which was all I was going to buy today.  Tomorrow however, I was going to pay the water bill.  

Suddenly I have spent 2 hours with an event that wasn't quite as bad as identity theft.  But why did it happen in the first place?  They guy at the tire place didn't have a clue.  Neither did Kelly at the bank.  Nobody could fix it for me either.  My $660 is now tied up in a non-purchase apparently, out in a limbo of "pending transactions" that never happened.

And what has all this taught a slightly anxious woman who is very careful with her Social Security income?  Avoid plastic, never let them swipe the card more than once, and maybe go back to cash under the mattress.