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£50 Billion cash missing, check down the sofa!

I still have a purse full of six penny pieces going back to the 19th century, apparently some worth a bit, also about a dozen of the commerative crowns for various royal stuff, apparently worthless.
 
I’ve got a few hundred quid stashed as thanks to covid I can’t go to a bank to pay it in or spend it! The only cash payments I’ve made since Feb have been for the window cleaner!
 
I've built up a bit of cash (adding to my pre Covid emergency fund) selling surplus stuff such as the Christmas tree that's too large for our new house, the barrow that came with the house etc.
 
Bart said:
Seriously though - don’t you get a thrill when you find even half a crown down the side of the sofa!!
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Yes! Or when you put on a coat you haven't worn for months or years and there is a 5 Euro bill crumpled in a pocket. Same thrill if it is a 1 Euro coin. I think it goes back to milk teeth and fairies.
 
Tony L said:
I’ve got a few hundred quid stashed as thanks to covid I can’t go to a bank to pay it in or spend it! The only cash payments I’ve made since Feb have been for the window cleaner!
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Ah yes. Your slave who does 10 windows for £5 and you flog him if they are not perfect.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
I presume they mean that of around £65 billion of banknotes in circulation, only a quarter of them are regularly changing hands.
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I wonder if this is because so few daily transactions now entail cash. i.e. the amount stashed hadn't gone up, the amount changing hands has gone down.

The card payment system went down in the canteen at work this week and they ended up taking IOUs because hardly anyone had cash on them!
 
Only use cc or PayPal online or for something that requires sect 75 protection, everything else is cash. I guess I must now be in the minority!
 
I've sometimes had the feeling there is an implied moral condemnation in using cash. As if one were a kind of borderline criminal for not toeing the line of the glorious "new technology" and paying by card.
 
Its only about £1000 for every adult in the UK. Factor in expats and tourists with a few tenners left over, all the overseas money changers holding pounds and it isn't that hard to explain
 
I've got about £80 in my pocket - I think some of it was actually last year's Christmas money from my Mum - she still gives me £50 for Christmas and birthdays (if she remembers.) It's nearly a year now since I last went out the house, will be on the 27th...
 
PaulMB said:
I've sometimes had the feeling there is an implied moral condemnation in using cash. As if one were a kind of borderline criminal for not toeing the line of the glorious "new technology" and paying by card.
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I think there's more of an infection worry about using cash now than a moral condemnation. I feel slightly uneasy giving cash to the local Big Issue seller!
 
I think the article does a very good job of showing the utter ignorance of politicians, and, to an extent, the journalists reporting the story.
How would anyone know where the banknotes are?They’re purposefully not traceable, and the minute they are, their use will decline even further. The anonymity they provide is a valuable personal freedom, and one of the few ways to balance government interference in everyday life (and personal spending).
That the BoE know the approximate value of the notes (calculated by knowing how many are issued and destroyed of every denomination) is an indication of what information they do have. And it is as much information as any other Central Bank in the world had over their notes and coins.
 
I also suspect that some people look at savings account interest rates of 0.25% or whatever and decide they might as well just stick it under the proverbial mattress.
 
There's a £10 note tucked in next to my 'daily-use' debit card; the tenner has actually been there since I last withdrew any cash to spend - sometime back in late February.


I suppose there'll be no point in executing the 'perfect bank robbery I've been musing on; (not least since all the local High St banks shut shop & disappeared meanwhile anyway..)
 
PaulMB said:
I've sometimes had the feeling there is an implied moral condemnation in using cash. As if one were a kind of borderline criminal for not toeing the line of the glorious "new technology" and paying by card.
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That's how the 'post-cash' shills for Big Brother want you to feel. How dare you engage in transactions the state cannot monitor and trace! ;)
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They’re traceable. As they each bank note has a unique number. The technology to track them isn’t that expensive nowadays either. But as that technology improved unfortunately so the cost of implementing it did as cash transactions reduced. There are some countries where this would have been relatively easy to sort.
 
Anybody ever have an issue with a "large" denomination note not being accepted?
Last Christmas when out shopping I had an issue at several merchants, including a gas station.
I was trying to use either a 50 or 100 dollar bill (Canadian - about 30 and 60 pounds respectively) and nobody would accept them. Scared of counterfeit bills I was told. That did not seem to jive with the bill scanner prominently displayed by the cash register. The $20.00 dollar bill seems to be King. I have always kept a $100.00 bill "emergency fund" tucked away in my wallet - a habit my father instilled back when a hundred bucks was actual money. Now thinking that may be mostly useless.
 
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