Cash Seems To Have Morphed From King To Unnesessary.

The last bastion of self control seems to have been taken from society.

We had to bite the bullet and have our pellet oven serviced. When you consider that the service company is about 100 km away, you might understand. Oh yes, driving time not optional but highly charged! Yet a warm house is a must for this coming winter season, so the service guy arrived yesterday.

If we had kept the old wooden stove ( for those who don't have ovens, it looks like an Aga one ) a service would have been easily done by us. Pellet ovens, like we have now, do need a tad bit extra and as the technician informed me yesterday, even the computerized display might pop its clogs someday soon... replacement not so cheap!

Luckily for us, they coordinated our service with another one in the area and only charged us half the travelling fee. At least a ray of sunshine there.

When the technician had finished, he went out to his van and did his sums on a laptop. Can you believe it. Right there in our driveway next to our empty post box because the invoice was per hand. Those in the know will realize that a bill to have your oven serviced is not in single nor double digits. It requires slightly more than your piggy bank savings.

As I had checked ahead of time, I knew that I could pay right away and with a credit / debit card. Yes, you heard right. The technician was equipped with a credit card machine...have you ever! He did have to hop about to find good reception but in the end the machine purred and without a care in the world it taxed my card.

Come to think of it, a lot of what used to be cash only / mostly has turned into never mind, use your card. Starbucks, Cinemas, Florists, Sweet Shops and now the service technicians too. Often the galling thing is that they do not accept cash as it is credit card only.

Talk about taking our self control away. We all know that spending is much easier when done through the abstract of a credit card. It might as well be called a:

• Incur Debt Card
• A card that will keep you working past retirement.
• A card that helps you collect useless stuff with greater ease.

The beauty of using cash and paying for what you buy immediately, is that you know where you stand and how much you stand on. If you only have 50 Euros for a grocery shop, that's what you spend. Even if it does look rather quaint when you put an item into your trolley and after having done a lap in the next isle, you put the item back onto the shelve!
Card-holders don't do that...

Talking about the waning importance of cash...next time you are either in church, or have a person asking for a donation, the old excuse of

" Oh, I am so sorry, but I haven't enough cash on me today! "

wont even fly past your doorstep because they will just whip out a credit card machine!

Biggi