One guy came in today with a wallet that was wrapped up with a 1″ thick rubber band. It had a LOT of bills in it. I started talking with him and it turned out the rubber band was to keep the money from falling out of his pocket. But he didn’t end up paying with the wallet for his purchase, he used ANOTHER wad of bills that had a thinner rubber band around it. It turned out that that was his discretionary spending wad of cash, and the other one was for planned spending like groceries and gas and whatnot.

Just an example. Most of these cash payers don’t buy as much stuff as the credit card people, but some of them come in and drop $150 in bills on you. It’s kind of impressive in a way and from my point of view, their money has more psychological weight–you KNOW that they actually have the cash to buy the stuff they bring up to the counter, and it seems like their spending is more considered.

Whenever the xmas and chanukkah holidays come around, some cash payers appear that I never see during the year– The books are clearly once a year expenses for them.

Of course, not ALL of them are frugal necessarily. One guy came in with a list of 4 books for his grandchildren, paid from a big roll of bills, then left his list on the counter when he left. The list was written on the back of a horse racing betting slip! That’s got to be an expensive habit! But the fact is, he HAD the cash to buy his books.

The incidence of cash purchasing in general, I would say, is definitely up.