I welcome Sammy Gecsoyler’s article (My week of solely utilizing money: may a return to notes and cash change my life?, 10 February) whereas noting that he’s younger, employed and residing in a metropolis, and that he commented in regards to the older cash-payers seen in charity retailers.
I’m one of many many who reside rurally. We depend on entry to money. Our lives nonetheless embody paying small sums – £2.50 for entry and a espresso at our many village societies (open to all), or £5 for lunch offered fortnightly by volunteers – and ranging sums to sponsor fundraising or village amenities, or small quantities to journey on our neighborhood bus.
Sammy talked about how utilizing money introduced extra face-to-face contact: such interactions are more and more uncommon in our present busy lives, however they’re a terrific profit to communities of all kinds. He additionally drew consideration to the acquire from utilizing money and realising how a lot objects price – after which contemplating how obligatory or in any other case every merchandise was. All of us want any assist we will discover in these occasions of excessive residing prices.Val MajorBristol
The article shines a welcome mild on the hazards of digital apartheid, denying individuals the choice to make use of money even for fundamental public companies.
A hanging instance is that it prices £10 merely to purchase an Oyster card. This isn’t a deposit, however a cost for a bit of plastic that presumably is made for pennies. Denying individuals the suitable to make use of money on London transport, then profiteering by way of the sale of Oyster playing cards at an obscene revenue margin, is cynical and exploitative. In Athens, for instance, as in different European capital cities, the equal loadable public transport card is freed from cost.Christopher RuaneLanark
Sammy Gecsoyler selected to make use of solely money for day-to-day spending for per week, and his ensuing article was fairly lighthearted. However for individuals who, for no matter purpose, use solely money because the norm, it’s not amusing in any respect to be so typically turned away from retailers, cafes, cultural venues and so forth.Albert BealeLondon
I appear to recall that, in retail institutions, it was obligatory to just accept authorized tender. Is that this not the case? As a younger saver/spender within the Sixties I collected halfpennies in a jar and spent them every year, to the irritation of cashiers.Duncan GrimmondMarkington, North Yorkshire
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