Almost every week I make a trip into the city. While I’m there I usually have lunch at a Japanese udon restaurant. With good food, fast service and inexpensive the noodle place is busy with a queue of people lining up. At the till a woman quickly tallies up my bill and automatically presents me with a card reader for payment. I can see why as all the customers appear to pay by card. In my case, my udon lunch costs around $10 and I say I’ll pay cash. The cashier was surprised as so few customers use cash. By using cash I keep better track of my money and expenses. It’s so easy to tap a card, it’s really done without much thinking. Buy now, pay later is more heavily promoted nowadays. Unfortunately with such easy ways to have money more people are falling into a trap. Many card services like AfterPay or Zip may be interest free which looks good to users. The trap however is that most of payment services make money on account fees and especially late fees. Monthly account fees are around $6. Buy now pay later services are making a fortune … from us and the way we use money. AfterPay, especially, is now a wealthy company and the owners very rich. They made this money from us, our habits and the way we use money. We think of the convenience of paying by card and doing things the way we see everyone else. We want to belong to the herd. But we pay for it in the end. Think about paying more often with cash, it’s a better way to keep better track of spending.
Living well on a shoestring 