After a reckless shopping spree, I ditched contactless payments and bank cards to see how far £200 cash in hand would get me – and if I could improve my spending habits
If I’m lucky, I can just about squeeze a £20 note into the back of my phone case, which holds the device I reflexively tap to pay for almost everything. But this week was different. After a reckless coffee-and-clothing spending spree made a mighty dent in my bank account, I decided I needed to take action. Self-control was one option, but another more drastic route was blunt-force restriction. I would ditch contactless payments, along with debit and credit cards. Instead, I would spend a week relying solely on cash.
After subtracting the lavish lattes and Asos deliveries that had massively inflated my average weekly spend, I allowed myself £180 for the basics, including food and travel. For safety, I gave myself an extra £20. The first task was to take out £200 in cash from the ATM. But what the hell was my pin number? Thanks to contactless capabilities, I hadn’t used this all-important combination of digits in more than a year. Googling how to find it, I discovered I’d have to wait three to five working days to get a letter reminding me of it in the post. This wouldn’t do. I decided to head to my local bank to explain my predicament.
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