Cash: Because your pumpkin spice latte consumption should only be between you, your barista, and your diabetes doctor!
“But you need a card for . . .”
Actually, I don’t. 99% of the time folks that want my money will figure out a way to take cash or check. The other 1% is what prepaid cards are for.
Approximately 4.5 percent of US Households are unbanked as of 2021, that is, they have no bank or credit union accounts in the household (1) 6.9 percent of US Households use general purpose re-loadable prepaid cards. (1) So you’re in good company when using prepaid cards. Or at least sufficiently abundant company.
There are two types of prepaid cards we use: the above mentioned general purpose, and dedicated vendor cards. Do I want to buy on Amazon? I take my money to the grocery store, swap it for an Amazon card, click through the menus on Amazon to upload the money to my account, and shop away. This is a win for me because my budget stays intact: there are no impulse purchases. Do I want to buy gas at Costco, or better yet, make one of my teen drivers fill the van when they borrow it to go play D&D with their buddies? Take cash to Costco, load my Costco Cash Card, and hand the young men the cash card. This is a win for me because they can’t spend it anywhere else.
Notice what doesn’t happen? Debt. Debt doesn’t happen. Notice what else doesn’t happen? Theft. Sure, someone could steal one of the card numbers, or even the physical card, at which point our annoyance is limited to the loss of the money currently on the card. Perhaps a couple hundred dollars, at most. That would be annoying, not devastating. Nothing bounces, no fighting to get the money returned to the account, no overdraft fees to dispute . . . and it’s never happened. Do you know anyone who hasn’t had either their credit or debit card stolen?
Now, we do have credit union accounts. We use them all the time. The tellers know me pretty well, most of them recognize me on sight (I’m the main person who goes into the credit union). No one blinks twice at me taking out a grand in cash: it’s my pattern, and the easiest way to make that change is to gossip with the teller about how you’re getting into Dave Ramsey and it’s such a great program . . . “Cash is King!” Say it with the smile and enthusiasm of the newly converted, and they might almost throw your money at you to get you to go away without preaching!
Am I worried about theft? No. First of all, I live in a Constitutional Carry state. You can safely assume that someone in your immediate vicinity is armed at all times, the commonly stated number is ten percent of adults carry, though I have no idea how they arrived at that, it seems . . . accurate enough from chitchat. Someone tried to rob a Wendy’s here: the assistant manager held the would-be robber at gunpoint until the police arrived and arrested the would-be robber. It’s not a great place for that kind of criminals. Second, no one carries cash. There’s no blazing sign that says “This person carries cash not plastic” over your head. The only moment when your payment choice can be determined is the checkout, and don’t flash how much you’re carrying, like any sensible person. If your bill is $210, pull out just $220 and make a comment about how closely you calculated that purchase. Dress like a normal middle class person for your area and project ‘credit card debt’ and who will guess differently?
What’s the catch? The catch is there are a few places that don’t want your business. A few services you can’t order. Some of them never thought of it, and will figure it out when you say something. Summer camp for the kids wanted us to register online and pay with a card. I went into the office, in person, and they figured out very quickly how to take cash or a check and register the kids. Your line here is “While this doesn’t apply to me, you do know that the poorest segment of society is unbanked, and you surely don’t want to discriminate against those children, who are overwhelmingly minorities and the children of single parents. How are you going to fix this?” Everywhere I have encountered the “We must get money from a card online” that involves anything child-oriented has figured out how to fix this right away. Well, it took the music camp twenty minutes, but really, that’s pretty fast, and the boss was out on lunch, so . . . really pretty fast. For the rest of everything, there are prepaid cards.
On top of this, if you want to have a credit or debit card and just not use it, unless it’s really an emergency, you can do that. No one needs to know, it can be your secret, and hide in your wallet. I have a business debit on my business account, I use it only for business expenses, nothing else, and that’s all fine and good. It doesn’t exist as far as actual daily life goes, and the only money at risk is the business money, not current living money.
If you have cash or checks, and your local stores are as smart as our feed store, they’ll even be able to do business with you when the internet is down. That was a memorable day. The credit union also pulled that one off, but most businesses had to close because they couldn’t figure out how to ring up tickets and take money without working registers. The credit union and feed store just went to pen and paper for the duration.
The more people insist on not using electronic payments, the more businesses will insist on their favorite politicians keeping cash around. Make a minor scene if some place won’t take cash. Not a major scene, just “Oh, I guess you don’t want to sell me this” and leave it on the counter and walk out. Encourage others to use cash. We all grew up in the nineties or earlier, right? Well, except for you, you, and you, but you three can learn how this works: I know you, you’re smart. Take a mental step back in time, disconnect from the hustle, enjoy the feeling of never fighting the ‘Oh, our reader is acting up, try it again’ electronic battles, and become so much harder to track.
And your pumpkin spice latte habit stays between you, your favorite barista, and your diabetes doctor, where it properly belongs.
(1) https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html
According To Hoyt 
I love this and am going to start!
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That’s a lot of driving time, back and forth to the stores to get prepaid/debit cards. Time that could be better spent on other things. Some people don’t have easy access to a large store that carries all the different kinds of prepaid cards you would need. People use credit cards because it hits the ‘Easy’ button. And if you’re paying off your balance every month because you’re living within a budget you set, then no debt there either.
Also, all banks and credit cards companies (reputable ones; if you’re doing business with an unreputable one, you have larger problems) will work with you on fradulent charges. I’ve never lost any money dealing with (the relatively rare) fraud attempts on my cards. Whereas if you lose a prepaid card, that money GONE. No chance to get it back.
This is just a method that works for some people. Not everyone.
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So? Figure out how it works for you.
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You can order a heck of a lot of these (in addition to their own cards) through Amazon, Sam’s Wal-Mart, etc, and have them delivered.
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Yep. The problem is that they’re then at least theoretically trackable.
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Yep. I don’t buy them, so I haven’t had the experience of in-person at the physical store. Don’t know how they arrange it.
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They just scan the price tag. Might or might not track, but you can pay for that in cash. :D
They don’t ask for ID.
I’ll be honest, we’ve been lazy about this stuff, because we’re SO busy, and it’s easy. Sigh.
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At the store they like it better when you pay cash for pre-paids. It means you are less likely to be someone who stole a card and are using it to buy as many pre-paid cards as you can before it gets cut off. They look much more closely when you purchase them with a credit card.
At least, that has been my experience.
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Reading “What I saw at the coup” made me think of ways to get around that, though.
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Yeah, I read it too. The problem is that the tech has advanced far enough to make some of it obsolete. For example, no one from our side is going to be in technicals as described; so much tracking tech has been implanted (lots of it after-market repair stuff) that they’ll know who’s where if they decide to look.
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If any of those cards have “tap to pay”, they have RFID on-board and the stores know when they walked out the door.
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Maybe we need Farady cage wallets?
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They make them; look for RFID blocking in the specs.
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Mom’s bank handed out RFID stopping card holders back when I got one from her to cover my Navy ID card, and I’ve been out for over a decade.
We also dealt with the tech in cattle ear tags…shot form, works better in a lab. May work in lab, at all…..
Add in not being able to get tap to pay to work half the time, and I’m not too worried. :D
(I do still have the blocker wallet.)
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I know. I know.
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I already have. Credit cards, paid off each month and no annual fee. No extra gas spent driving all over town to get prepaid cards. No risk to my bank account. Cash back or miles. They WANT you to use credit cards, so they make it easy, and give you freebies. The way to beat them at their game is to pay it off on time so there are no interest charges.
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Yes. Of course. that’s what we do too. BUT you’re (and we’re) giving them all our data. And it’s all too easy to debank us. So, figure a way around that.
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Debank? What? How? Who? The bank certainly isn’t going to do it. That’s where they get their money to lend. If a bank can’t lend, it can’t make money. Third party actor? They just want money. And they’ll have to fight some of the toughest security around, cause banks don’t like to part with their money. The government? Ain’t no way banks are going to let the government get in the way of them making money. A little lobbying here, a few PAC depostis there, a nice dinner or two and Congresscritter X won’t support any legislation to hobble the banks.
So just who is this imaginary foe that’s going to ruin things financially for us?
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Dude? Have you been asleep?
Or are you a hard left troll?
Because people have been debanked — i.e. refused banking, as have companies.
Hey, guys, I’m trying to get chapters done. Hit him with links. Hard and fast.
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Why don’t you ask Nigel Farage? Or Kyle Rittenhouse? or Russel Brand?
And those are just the ones you HEAR about. Debanking is why GiveSendGo exists.
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https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/athena-thorne/2023/07/05/wow-former-prime-minister-nigel-farage-deplatformed-by-entire-uk-banking-system-n1708335
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Precisely. I mean, either this person is the most clueless individual ever, or an extreme left troll.
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Another example. Let me know how many cluebat strikes it takes, Mikey.
“In January 2022, one of his banks, the Minnesota Bank & Trust, described the MyPillow CEO as a “reputation risk” and cut ties with him weeks later.”
And now it’s AMEX:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/mike-lindell-says-mypillow-crippled-by-major-credit-card-company-5498686
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Any number of loud and proud conservatives and other non-leftoids have been kicked out of their banks. And sometimes not very loud ones. For example, the very ironically named “Bank of America” (spit) abruptly terminated several firearms related businesses. “We don’t want their kind here.” It mattered not a whit that the bank was making money from their lawful commerce. Out they went.
That same bank has no problems with folks clearly violating all sorts of laws, however, folks cheered on by the leftroids, which is why I walked away from them (spit) more than 16 years ago.
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Ask Nigel Farage about getting de-banked. Almost every major bank in the UK refused to do business with him after his bank at the time (I forget the name) simply dropped him without warning. Turns out some info got released from that bank confirming that it wasn’t a “business” decision as they said, it was STRICTLY political.
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They are happy to allow illegals to open accounts, get mortgages, etc.
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GET DETAILS!
Get names, get dates, get claims, get links if you can– because there have been multiple cases where you go and insist they’re poor widdle victims, and then it turns out that they were actually doing shady stuff, and the ‘debanking’ was, er, not as recorded.
The progs LIVE on “I meant to do that,” and if it doesn’t work, then it never happened.
Build up lists, links, etc– Sarah’s got a page for them.
They really like taking half-truths– they HATE the light.
Remember the thing on how “vaccines don’t contain any baby parts”? Then it turns out that it’s actually more like “yeah, there’s identifiable human DNA, but only little chunks. Not the whole chain.”
I oppose murdered-human-grown vaccines because it takes a dead person, but I thought the “dead baby parts” was an exaggeration to parody. Nope, it was the truth, phrased to sound dumb, and ignoring the actual objections.
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They do, yes.
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For example– we’ve got left wing mass shooters, and absolutely insane all over the board shooters.
But they’re always reported as right wing, because it’s more useful.
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Missed the point. “How to use cash” is “How to not leave easily connected dots”.
Allergic to debt is another reason, but seldom the primary.
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For what it’s worth, our local Kroger affiliate has a Yuge display (maybe 200 different outfits?) of prepaid cards, many (most, actually) of which are for businesses that do not have a physical presence in Flyover County. If I had a burning desire to order something from Panera, for instance, I could (probably) use the card for an online order. OTOH, Home Desperate needs me to be present to do special (prepaid) orders with a gift card. Been there, did that, collected the fuel points from Fred Meyer Fuel (yeah, I use a loyalty card. If the feds are interested in my banana consumption, they can have that data.).
Right now, I’m not worried about being debanked from the credit union. There’s another one that might be sketchy, but there would be workarounds.
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Bananas, Bacon, and raw dog food blend from butcher. The other charges? Yes, we own a house, so we pay property taxes, and utilities. Hubby plays golf. We like national parks. Which national park? Well good luck tracking that by the fees. Hubby qualified for the senor pass 10 years ago (I qualify now too, but at $80 instead of $10, will wait until I have to). Track the fuel purchase locations, yahoos. Also belong to credit union.
I am not apposed to CC or whatever making money. If they don’t make money the option isn’t available. I just don’t want it to cost me money, and preferably provide a bit of a kickback. The important stuff, I don’t want them to know about? Cash is used. (Want them to know about the boating. How else can I sell the boat accident story? Didn’t sink the boat, just tipped it, and some things fell out.)
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Counterpoint. I like my cash back discounts. 1% – 4% add up quickly, over the year, or even over just a few purchases. No, I do not pay annual fees, or interest, for that privilege. Yes, if the latter changes, we will go to cash.
Tracking? I guess PTB can take my CC charge and back track to the receipt and items purchased, the vendor can, but pretty sure they have to go to the vendor. I can’t just off the CC charge online. I download charges to track what we (hubby and I) are spending where (if not specifically what, for groceries, etc., unless there is a specific reason, then I cheat and buy that category separately). What I do avoid is auto pay directly from checking account. Auto pay to CC, yes. Because when I cancel those and they screw up, and they will, can challenge with the cancel code, have the charge removed, and (theory) vendor gets hand slapped. Bank account that is a lot harder.
Knock on wood. Fingers crossed. We’ve lost CC and debit cards (because entire wallet lost) but never had any cards numbers stolen and used. Mom has (*elderly senor, so a huge target, and she triggered it. What part of “Do NOT click on links. Period.” wasn’t getting through? There is exactly ONE exception, and she has to trigger that to get it. She must use the alternative instead.) She has every charge reported to her phone.
I do like the idea for the prepaid Costco Card for fuel for teens. Wish we’d thought of that when kid was in HS. He just used cash (didn’t go to Costco for fuel, still doesn’t. Not worth the $0.10/gal, ~$1.50 total, savings for the drive.)
(*) No. Not redundant. I’m a senor. Hubby is an older senor (yes, he is getting hit too, just not as much, yet). Mom hits 89 in 6 weeks.
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Gas prices are crazy high in California, enough so that we’re getting 40-60¢ on the gallon benefit for getting gas at Costco. Which would honestly be a deal even if the local one were further than three miles away.
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Our Costco is only 5 miles away. But easy to waste fuel getting there and back due to the Beltline (OR Hwy 569) parking lot. Okay, since I go to Costco or Petsmart (across street) regularly anyway. But dad and son don’t go that way, regularly (son doesn’t have a Costco card either). Cost difference is dependent on which way the fuel is going. It averages $0.08/gal.
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It’s 105 miles for us, so for the semi-annual trips, I’ll (usually) fill there, unless I have a large discount coming for Fred Meyer (Kroger) gasoline. A $100 gift card for Home Depot (or JoAnn) is good for a ) $0.20/gallon discount at Fred’s, and if I have a big project, I can max it out to $1.00 a gallon, though usually I’ll break it up to a couple of $0.50/gallon discounts.
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We have hit $1/gal discount. Just not often. Takes the multiple 2x and 4x fuel points earned for us to hit the >= $0.50, mark. Too dang easy these days under Bidenomics, since I can’t walk out of Freds without spending $100, anymore. Do that 4x’s and it adds up. Also earns me 4% on Verizon CC to apply to the cell phone bill. I aim to nickle and dime them for discounts.
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I removed the cedar wrap-around deck from the house, since dry cedar and pine cones can make for an interesting set of fuels. Had to leave a smaller deck that floors a sun room, but I need a small deck at the front porch. Even though some of the framing lumber is recycled from the old deck, I’ve seriously wounded a $500 Depot card with fasteners and the heavy galvanized Simpson Strong-Tie fittings, and the rest of the framing lumber.
I’ll do in another $500 card when I get the Trex decking. It’s only 70 square feet, but the composite boards are expensive. Since the Honda gets 20 mpg with the utility trailer in tow, the good gas discounts come in handy.
We spread our groceries among several places; from a couple of grocery stores, the Bi-Mart club store and the restaurant supply. (Weekly shopping trips are an all-day affair, with 90 miles round trip just to and from town.) The semi-annual Costco trips are largely groceries, including the mutant rotisserie chickens. We marvel at the size of the chicken breasts, but at $5.00 a bird, I got 4 of the chickens last time. They freeze well. That was 8 dinners and a lot of leftover lunches for the two of us.
Most of my Fred Meyer gas discounts come from Depot gift cards, with JoAnn in a distant second place (though $SPOUSE is getting ready for winter projects). (Aside: the guy running the register at JoAnn yesterday had the satanic goat head as a tattoo. The multiple rings in his nose were less disturbing than that…)
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Every time I go to Costco and get a rotisserie chicken, I mention how I make stock with the carcass. The people around me usually have no idea how easy stock is. (Add water to carcass and boil for a long time. Strain and cool, not all at once in the freezer or you’ll thaw your other food. Add salt later, for those in sodium-conscious households.)
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Literal “I just can’t even”
Don’t put stuff in the trash, put it in the rice cooker.
cook it.
Strain it.
Make rice with the “water.”
Done.
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We use chicken stock for the salt, but yes.
And just substitute it for water in rice and you have a great side dish.
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Even better if you cook it with a bit of onion, carrot, garlic and, if you’re good with it, a bit of (good) white wine. Strain out the solids and you can throw a pot of “chicken whatever soup,” together that night and freeze the rest.
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Where do you think that ‘cash back’ comes from? It’s a fraction of the fees charged to the vendors, which they already passed on to everybody as higher prices. The bank is bribing you to keep those vendor fees rolling in and the prices inflated.
From your perspective, taking the bribes is the rational decision — just be aware of what you’re doing.
———————————
“Ehh, on second thought let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”
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Well, coupons – or any kind of discount – can also be called “bribes.” The cost of those is also baked into prices. It is almost impossible, too, to find anywhere that doesn’t use them, and therefore has lower prices.
Myself, I use them all the time. The bank rarely has any offer on something that I’m going to buy. My CostCo membership, though, is more than paid for every year by the cash back on my executive membership (that may change when there are fewer people in the household, but I’m not looking at that for a while yet).
I definitely use the grocery loyalty card – besides their targeted coupons for what we are going to buy anyway, the dollar a gallon on gas that accumulates (twice!) during the month, the 10% old man discount on everything the first Wednesday of the month, and the 10% on chain brands every day because one daughter works there – we save between $1,500 and $2,000 a year.
Oh, and right now, and for as long as it lasts, I’m using the “Kindle Rewards” to get at least a few “free” ebooks here and there.
I do keep cash, a fair amount of it, but not on me for longer than to get it home and stash it away. Robbery? Well, by the time they get to it, if they get to it, I won’t have any worldly concerns. And at least one or two of them won’t either!
We use no credit cards, only debit. Yes, I do pay for most things with that plastic – because self-check is so much faster. Time is not so much money to me these days, but I still try to not waste any more of what I have left than I possibly can.
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We get enough back on the executive membership rebate to make a bit (not a whole lot). But the Costco CC rebate is enough that they give me a check (or direct deposit now through app) and pays difference needed for monthly gap for month that rebate arrives (or did Bidenomics raises it’s ugly head now). Note, I don’t even come close to the highest rebate paid out by our local Costco, but it isn’t an insignificant (to us) amount either.
Same. As long as they aren’t charging for the privilege. In addition the Epubor Ultimate decryption app is now working on Kindle books, again.
B&N has started something similar under a premium model. Not if I have to pay to get it. My 5% immediate discount credit through the B&N CC is good enough.
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I am aware. Before CC it was charges from bad checks.
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I’ve never lost my cards; although I did have some larcenous waitstaff at one of the restaurants in town take the cc information and tried to use it to purchase stuff down in Boston. Bank spotted that immediately (not my pattern, and not items I’d ever buy), refused the charge, and notified me within minutes of it happening.
Wife has had hers stolen at least a half dozen times; usually because she left it somewhere. She tends to put something down and forget about it. Been doing that for decades, so it’s not old age, and it’s unlikely to change. /sigh
I really prefer cash. It breaks any record of spending locations. It’s especially important for weapon and ammunition purchases. The feds already have NCIS (although they SAY they don’t keep a record of checks) and form 4473; they don’t need an additional digital money trail.
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Reminds me of the old joke: “My wife lost her credit card but I’m not going to report it. Whoever found it spends less than she did.” :-D
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Without explaining why, I am laughing so loud my coworkers are worried.
Now I need to go breathe in a paper sack for a while… Whoooo. Good one!
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Definitely cash for G & A
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Unless you have never bought from an FFL, or never obtained some sort of permit, or never joined a gun range, they know you have one. The art is buying just enough mundane stuff to look small-fry and irrelevant. Box of light birdshot, box of low-end .22 target fodder, once in a blue moon. Then pay cash for the rifle in a private sale and also for the case of 7.62. Use the prepaid card for the heavy lifts. etc.
Kinda like stage magic. Show something harmless or obvious to hide the finagling.
They then don’t know about how much and where, frustrating potential plans and actions.
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I’m sure this will get a rise.
What’s the safe shelf life for a case of hand grenades?
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Happened to mom too. Really glad of the “recent” (last couple decades anyway) of being forced to tell CC that traveling out normal area or US. Wish still had ability to limit by state and country.
Hubby does this. Yes, not old age. Although getting worse. I’ve collected his card from restaurant vendors more than once (not stolen after being left behind, vendor puts behind counter). Now I pay attention to make sure he puts it away, or I pay.
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Also a good idea to have one card with a low maximum for any uses where it might be easily compromised, and save the high-limit cards for needful things. that low card also traches you to pay it off weekly, thus avoiding interest charges.
I have cards that have gone 10+ years without a penny of interest, on quite significant churn. I think the issuers hate me. (grin)
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We haven’t paid interest on CC’s in 40 years. Never paid for the privilege of having a CC. I know CC’s companies don’t like us.
When we first started getting credit, we did deliberately pay interest. That was to get our credit established, we had none. Sears, then Wards, beyond gas cards, were the only ones we could get (late ’70s/early ’80s). At that time Wards instituted an “unemployment” insurance fee option. We exploited the hell out of it. (Hubby ran the math. They did not make any money off of us. It paid for our TV, at minimum.) Then they changed how it all worked and we dropped that like it was toxic (it was).
Given our current credit ratings (“they really, really, like you” levels), we should be getting piles of credit card applications. We aren’t. OTOH we have the credit bureau stuff locked down.
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Did the restaurant care when you told them that one of their employees was a thief? (Assuming you figured out which restaurant and told them about it; maybe you didn’t). Because if they’re smart, they should care. A person willing to steal from customers is someone who would also be willing to steal from his/her employer. Maybe he/she isn’t smart enough to figure out how to embezzle and get away with it, and therefore hasn’t tried, but he/she has definitely demonstrated the willingness to steal. Larcenous in uno, larcenous in omnibus.
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You might be shocked at how morally incompetent some folks can be.
Also, “well, as long as it aint ripping -me- off, who cares?” combined with someone who is cunning enough not to crap on their mealticket directly.
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When I had a checking account at [major bank, with horses hauling people in a “carriage” in their commercials] that was drained by somebody using my name. There was a Cali driver’s license number on the checks (three of them), not mine. No clear connection between the thief (in So Cal) and me (Silicon Valley). Best assumption was an inside job; somebody noticed I had a largish amount of money in checking (was going to buy the bits to build a new VW engine).
Reported it to the police (no luck tracking the perp) and went to the bank. Had to speak
moderately(OK, very–my voice carries, too) loudly to get the manager’s attention, and he was horrified that I had the nerve to call the police. I think he lost three customers that day, and that was before $FIANCE started calling friends…Got the money back PDQ and closed the account. I went to the credit union of my (then) employer. Used a S&L when we moved to Oregon, until they weren’t TBTF, and moved to another credit union. A local one; the tellers know me, at least two by name, and the others by sight.
For various reasons, I keep a credit card through the horsey bank, but their CC division hasn’t screwed me over in close to 50 years. Any online purchases go through that CC.
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My mom and both my sisters are the same way. They talk normally, and you can hear them throughout, wherever. My voice isn’t that way, not even close. I can scream into someone’s ear and have them not hear me. Very frustrating.
Glad you got it taken care of.
Worse we’ve had was when Washington Mutual got bought out (originally Willamette Savings), by major bank (not the horse wagon one). Fees instituted if no auto deposit or deposits < $500. Since kid didn’t have a regular full time job (still in college) he qualified for the fees. Could have triggered the “student” account for about 14 months. Said BS, moved all the accounts to the local credit union across the street (already had an account because of loans). Just moved son’s and all of ours, including closing down a different CC account (while we were doing this). For reasons our accounts, back then, were not an insignificant sum. Son’s accounts were small. Now it is the opposite. We do not pay banks the privilege of storing our money, or using their CC’s; period.
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Pa once closed out an account at a bank and when asked why, told them it BECAUSE they were robbery proof. Huh? “According to statistics, the average bank robbery takes about ten minutes. This place has NEVER worked that fast.”
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My experience with horsey bank (do they have the initial, “W”?) was the brokerage depth was iffy, but the banking department was very good.
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Yep, that’s the one. We had a checking account at Washington Mutual when we moved up here, since the formerly HP credit union had no presence in Flyover County. I was getting quite annoyed at WaMu when I was quoted a reasonable interest rate for an IRA CD, but when I went to start the account, the real rate was considerably lower. (All on the same day. Go figure!) That got them a very short term CD, and those funds got moved elsewhere as soon as the certificate matured. (It was going to be a fairly large hassle to cancel the check and get a new one. They were still WaMu at the time, but there was schadenfreude when they got caught up in the banking crunch.)
When they got bought by Chase, we had already done a bit of business with the largest local credit union. Service at the Chase branches was rather worse than when they were WaMu, so GTFO was appropriate, so switching to the CU was logical and we’ve never regretted it.
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IIRC Chase is one of those Woke, Social Equity Credit scoring companies now, isn;t it?
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I don’t know (though I suspect so). I’ve been gone from them completely for a long time, so I haven’t been paying attention.
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Absolutely yes.
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very
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Works. My experience with them related to my dad. When we came in to ask about his checking, the local banking people were, “Oh, thank Goodness, someone’s listening to us!”
That led to a year where I had to approve every check, by phone, before they’d cash it ( which annoyed the heck out of my brother’s “friends,” the ones who’d been forging checks. Annoyed my brother, too. It was a bad scene all the way around).
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I’ve been using cash when it’s convenient. I use checks, too. People get this ‘How quaint!’ expression. But I still use credit cards sometimes.
I ran into a bad vendor on Amazon. I never got the product I ordered, and Amazon told me they had already issued a refund. I told them I didn’t get that refund, they promised to take care of the problem, and nothing happened. I went round and round with them for 2 months. I finally reported it to the credit card company and got a refund from them within a week.
If I had used an Amazon ‘cash card’ I would probably still be trying to get my money back.
Most people are not going to use cash unless they consider it a matter of principle. Credit cards are convenient, and most businesses (other than gas stations) are forbidden by contract from adding the credit card fees to their prices, or offering discounts for cash.
And so the banks continue to invisibly suck a few percent out of almost every transaction.
———————————
G’Kar: “Weep for the future, Na’Toth. Weep for us all.”
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Thanks to our lovely democratic legislator and governor, this is not true anymore in Oregon (same with self serve fuel at the pumps). Only place I’ve ran into it is car maintenance service. Instead of paying with CC, used a check. Net savings 2% (3% “charge” VS 1% CC refund). So far, no where else, has done this. Not grocery, not restaurants. Although at restaurants we find out whether tips to the server are subject to the 3% charge or not (not means restaurant is absorbing them). We try to leave cash tips. As far as checks, wonder when they are going to relearn the lesson of bad checks (at which point the CC fees will look less expensive, again).
As far as fuel. Cash for fuel at places that play this game had been running about the same cost as Costco, or $0.10 – $0.15 less than Kroger local. Hubby and son use the cash options (as they are rarely going by, or to, Costco. Hubby will use Kroger if the available earned discount is more than $0.10/gallon (this month it got to $0.50/gal, given he lets fuel get down very low, not an insignificant savings.
Off topic. Getting all comments sent to email, again. Don’t know if I finally figured out the WP account settings, or WP fixed a problem. Don’t care. Working how I want it to. Now I have a cute icon (Pepper, FWIW).
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The thing I dislike about paying cash for fuel is that everywhere wants you to pre-pay when you do that.
And I don’t want to spend the time going in, giving the cashier money, and then going back out to fill my vehicle, then coming back in to get the rest of my money back and do whatever other business I had in the store.
‘s way too much peopleing.
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Before PTB instituted Oregon self serve fuel, not a problem. Now that they have, I suspect that is going to happen here too.
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The key is no debt.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Too bad he couldn’t stick to it.
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Yep.
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Winner!
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Cash is just one instance of a much larger problem — the surveillance state, which is not just about government but also global corporations that want the power to punish those who dissent from their agendas.
Expect not just your bank but your cell phone and internet services; your car; your landlord if you live in a large condo or apartment complex; your “smart” appliances; and even your city or county (via hidden cameras) to surveil as much of your life as they can, and to share the data they gather with those who will abuse it. Then look for ways to anonymize those services or do without them.
And in case I need to say it, never have a Siri, Alexa, Ring, or similar device in your home, and avoid visiting people who have them.
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THIS. And yet there are plenty of people who want to say that as long as “private” companies gather the data and turn it over, it’s cool.
Before the government can obtain your “private papers”, “possessions”, etc., there’s a process they should have to go through. Information gathered electronically is still information you didn’t give the government permission to use against you.
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One cannot avoid the surveillance state, or disappear effectively.
But one sure can make them work a whole bunch harder for what they get. The more noise ordinary folks generate, the less signal to snoop. The less generated signal to snoop, the more noise has to be sifted. And practice -now- leads to more effective resistance -then- when the penny drops. Very hard to learn tradecraft when the actual Geheim Statz Polizei is well established. Much easier to learn it in the Constable Friendly / Keystone Kops era than later. Much cheaper too.
And it is a raised middle finger, so fun itself.
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Yes to cash! For many years now, both pre and post retirement, we have been doing “envelopes” for our monthly budget. There is the Rx one for medical costs, the gas one for car expenses, the one for grocery costs as well as a bit in the “extra/miscellaneous” to cover the doggo going to the groomer and such.
We’ve never had a problem with it and when discussing it with clerks they’ve responded that it is not uncommon and has become expected. One weird thing I did find was on a trip to the local big hospital there was a block of vending machines for food, soda, etc. that would only take a card. Got a drink using my card and the charge never showed up.
back in 2000 I had to run a brief program for a group of state employees doing coverage of hospitals and homes during a work strike. Over the couple of months these “replacement” manager staff had to use the special cards for lodging, meals and expenses. At the end of the program we did an audit and found about 4-5% of the charges (we had the receipts) were never processed and the vendors in question never complained about non payment so we figured the bank took the blame.
I had a “super card” for high expenses and once used it to book an entire hotel for a week to cover worker lodging for over thirty grand and nobody blinked – that charge did get processed!
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I think it depends on the type of card. A card designated as a “super card” used by a business, a $30k charge wouldn’t cause the CC company to blink or question the charge. OTOH we put a Rainbow Play Structure on ours ($6k) back in mid-’90s. We got called before they would process it. Happened more recently when we got a small hottub ($5k).
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No offense intended, but I consider my debit card as the same as cash because I’m not creating more debt.
As always, Your Mileage May Vary. :grin:
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I pay off every credit card every month. No debt there.
I don’t use debit cards. They give direct access to the account. A crook can clean out the account and your money is gone. You have to try to get it back from the bank. Fraud on a credit card takes the bank’s money, and you keep yours while you dispute it.
———————————
Today, every child in America is born $139,000 in debt.
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Ditto on the payoff each month.
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As I said, “Your Mileage May Vary”.
As for me, I had major problems with using credit cards.
I don’t trust me with credit cards.
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+1
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Ditto. Plus we track everything on the cards.
Again. Ditto. We have debit cards to access for cash, at a bank, but we don’t use them for purchasing, anything. I also track everything.
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It took me a while to get to that point, but for a couple of decades now, it’s paid off immediately. It varies from a hundred a month (or so) to over a kilobuck, but when the bill comes in, it gets paid.
I have two accounts that get paid by check each month (power and the CC), with a some others direct pay. State and federal quarterlies are by check, as is the property tax. If I have reason to trust the entity, I’ll consider direct pay. /VBEG
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I “*write checks” too for property tax (they charge for CC payments, nope), house, CC payments, and one vehicle (other vehicle is auto pay but same bank and we got lower load rate) but I trigger them through the bank, not auto pay, and not triggered from the entity being paid. Utilities are auto pay to CC but not getting charged fees to do so, also not getting discount for auto pay. The instant utilities notify to charge for privilege of using CC, will go back to not auto pay, and manually trigger payment. Xfinity/Comcast is giving discount for auto pay, just the discount for auto pay with CC is less than using the checking account. Still better than not auto paying, I am not giving their system access to the checking account numbers.
(*) Actually most are digital payments, not written checks. But point is I am triggering them each month. Not automatic.
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Same here. At the beginning of every month I go to the account and schedule the payments. For a couple of bills I mail dead-tree checks because they want to take automatic debits from my account which is a hard NOPE! Taxes get paid by dead-tree check, too. I mail out about 20 checks a year.
I never allow multiple dings to a credit card. All bills are paid once-and-done. No monthly subscriptions; they always want automatic payments. Have you ever tried to get automatic payments stopped? ‘Tis a nightmare.
I never sign up for ‘free trial periods’ either. They always jump the gun and start charging early, and they never seem to process the cancellation.
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They get one chance to do the cancellation correctly. Then I attach the cancellation ticket number/code (whatever the entity calls it), to the first not cancelled charge, and challenge the charge through the CC, for an explanation, along with “no contract”, “all minimum months long gone”, and whatever else they might come back with. Funny how that always works. I never bring up “lawyer”. I don’t know what the CC fraud department does :-0
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Your deposit does, create debt that is. Cash qua cash does not. Deposits are loans to the bank that they then loan out again, several times. Fractional banking and all.
I’m not opposed to debt actually, just debt that won’t return its value. Buying a cup of coffee on credit for example …. or war.
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There’s that.
But I don’t want to create more debt that I personally have to repay.
IE I don’t trust me with credit cards.
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Sure. We use cards without creating debt.
BUT for avoiding surveillance cash is better.
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Agree. Certain stores it is better to forgo the 1% rebate and use cash, not even debit card or check, because latter two still leave banking traces on where money went, if not why. But all the other little stuff? Drown them in information.
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Controlling one’s spending is often as much as matter of mind games on yourself as money. Or more.
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We tend to go through cash and not know where it was spent. Where as with Credit, we track it. We at least know where it was spent. Even if we don’t track minutia, for grocery VS not, say at Costco or local Kroger.
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look up The envelope system. It’s how people keep track with cash.
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On top of this, if you want to have a credit or debit card and just not use it, unless it’s really an emergency, you can do that.
If you have a CC (not debit) for emergencies, be aware that credit card companies will not send you a new one when the old one expires if it’s not getting used. So make a small purchase every now and again.
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Make that a small, innocuous purchase
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Credit card companies may also cancel the card if you don’t use it for a long time, like a year. So you should buy something with the card every few months, and then pay it off.
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In 2006 we had a lot of unused not “setup” CC’s (buy on credit 0% interest if paid off X months, or cards we used to use, but stopped, but account not cancelled) when house was robbed. No CC’s stolen (knew what we had). Called every card to cancel the ones we weren’t carrying just in case the numbers, etc., were stolen off them (weren’t). Got new cards! Grrrrrr. We have a safe for these types of cards (and other stuff), now. After 3 years of non-use, they’ll cancel them for you. But try to cancel them yourself? Good freaking luck.
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Paying in cash is kind of fun. I always do cash and check for car mechanic stuff, because it gets me a 3% discount on the total bill.
I haven’t been very good at doing cash for the rest of my expenses. But I’m trying.
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The fuel company gives a 2% discount for cash/check/EFT. I hadn’t bought fuel oil for the barn in over 1.5 years, so the $500 bill was unpleasant, but the discount took a tiny bit of the sting off.
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“Money…it’s a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash…”
(Sorry, could not help myself.)
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Dang it, man, now that song is stuck in my head! (Eh…it’s far from Pink Floyd’s best, but far from the worst as far as earworms go.)
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I prefer “Money” from Cabaret. :)
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“if I was a rich man” from Fiddler on the Roof
Oddly, that one I can sing.
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The drive to digital currency will drive barter and an underground black market form of currency instead.
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Dean Ing, Mack Reynolds, and others have written extensive fiction of this subject; especially ways to get around the restrictions.
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I stopped carrying cash in Denver because I could tell the panhandlers, “I don’t carry cash any longer.” What can I say? I dislike lying. Now that I’m not in Denver and there is a cash discount (I thought it was not allowed by the credit card company’s machine rental agreements, but it happens here), I usually have cash in my wallet.
The debit card in Denver was on an account with almost nothing in it. That’s not true here. I need to fix that.
The credit card sits in a drawer in my desk. I’ll occasionally use it for something online, but its main purpose is the unexpected big expense (e.g. flying across the country for a wedding or funeral).
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I was once at a place that offered a cash discount — and oh, yes, the prices listed were with the discount, not the credit card price.
I think they aren’t allowed to make it a card surcharge. That’s psychology.
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Oregon they can now. Thanks to our legislature and governor.
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My recollection is that years ago the Congress passed a law that prohibited merchants from adding a surcharge for using a credit card but allowed a discount for cash, so if the merchant wanted to, the price quoted would assume you were using a credit card, and then they would offer a discount for cash. Anyone know if that law is still in effect? It would preempt any state laws on the subject.
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If true, then someone would have to complain about the Oregon change. Only ran into it one place, so far (other than fuel discounts for cash).
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My recollection is that years ago the Congress passed a law that prohibited merchants from adding a surcharge for using a credit card but allowed a discount for cash, so if the merchant wanted to, the price quoted would assume you were using a credit card, and then they would offer a discount for cash. Anyone know if that law is still in effect? It would preempt any state laws on the subject.
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we have a debit account that never has more than $100, because when the kids were little it was easier for me to go out (walking) with no wallet (or my license in my pocket if driving) and a credit card in my pocket, and nothing else. (CLOTHES, yes. Geesh. Getting ahead of this site’s comedians.)
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“(or my license in my pocket if driving) and a credit card in my pocket, and nothing else. (CLOTHES, yes. Geesh. Getting ahead of this site’s comedians.)”
Well, we were almost certain you hadn’t turned wallaby (unless you’ve been taking lessons from RES)…..
(Don’t try to get ahead of us comedians; you’ll just incorridge us)
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The scandalous bit is you implied no sidearm.
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Where else do arms grow?
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Another reason to have cash on hand: if for any reason your bank and/or credit card accounts are frozen (run on the bank, the government doesn’t approve of your politics, etc.) your cash will still work. I’m in the process of slowly building up a reserve of cash at home using small regular withdrawals from my credit union’s ATM, so it doesn’t appear suspicious or raise any flags. My goal is to have enough cash on hand to pay a month’s worth of bills, if needed. An added plus about using the ATM is that it gives me the cash in $20 bills, which any retailer will accept without blinking an eye.
Yes I know I’m paranoid, the question is, am I paranoid enough?
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No. You’re probably not. It’s not going to hit everywhere, but there will be unimaginable bad some places, inexplicably. I’m still reeling from the FBI shooting that disabled retired carpenter in Utah for mouthing off on FB (IF that was him mouthing off. Their hacking jobs do interesting things.)
Seriously. We had mutual friends, and the whole thing is horrifying and as inexplicable as Ashli Babbit.
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That shooting reminded me of Ruby Ridge, but with less cause. It honestly felt to me as if the FBI did it as a show of power, to send a message to us. “Look what we can do, with no repercussions. Don’t step out of line!”
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Got it in one. This is terrorism, straight up.
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The problem is when you murder old guys openly, it makes the others go under ground. Then the Gestapo has a hard time keeping track of them and what they are doing. Going card-less does the same. Which will cause the
Gestapo to go nuts trying to figure out what is going on. Go, card-less, go underground, drive the Gestapo so nuts they start to suspect each other. How many of those whistle blowers are actually Gestapo? Plant little seeds of paranoia in their feeble little Gestapo minds.
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Agreed. They’re using “1984” as a training manual; they don’t seem to realize that other fictional “training manuals” exist. “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross comes to mind…
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ooooo…. that is badthinkbook!
Also badly dated now, in how things work.
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It is, both; the first is a feature, not a bug. As for the second, “adapt, improvise and overcome” isn’t limited to the Corps. :-)
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Yep. And it makes me want to beard them more. If I die, I die. There are things that matter more than life. I will not be a sheep.
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My mind went to Waco. They could have nabbed Koresh at any time during one of his daily jogs, when he wasn’t surrounded by others and probably wasn’t carrying an arsenal, but Reno wanted a big splash.
She got one, just not the one she intended.
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she’s dead now, right? So …. out of our hands, but not unpunished, hopefully.
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Perpetually being burned alive wouldn’t be a terrible start for her.
A bit annoying to have to wait until the hereafter for her to face any actual punishment, though (because she certainly didn’t get anything significant done to her before her assumption of room temperature).
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I think it was a message to someone specific, probably someone in a position of power in Utah. Even if that power exists only in their deranged minds.
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I don’t see what’s so inexplicable about it. Must be your mind is too innocent and pure.
Ashli died because they needed to make a victim to provoke the crowds to violence. It could have been any younger (she wasn’t that old) female, people react more strongly to the killing of females as a general rule. It was clearly planned as part of the J6 op. It failed to drive the crowd into a killing frenzy, so the gambit failed.
You will have noticed that over the last few years there has been a push to coddle criminals and punish those who resist them. We saw a lot of that during the Antifa riots.
Killings like that of the old man serve two purposes. 1. Sends the message “anyone who opposes the regime, no matter how harmless or innocuous, will be dealt with. So shut up and comply. 2. Demoralize society by withdrawing the sens of general safety we have here to fore taken for granted. Know that at any random moment you can be found guilty of anything and severely punished. Know that you have cause for fear, as you are continually at peril and there is nothing you can do about it.
It goes along with creating a fear based, as opposed to a faith based (not necessarily religious faith) society.
Hey! Sounds like the perfect foundation for a collectivist, totalitarian tyranny. Huh. Whaddaya know about that?
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…and when their Reichstag Fire turned into a Reichstag Fizzle, they tried to make Brian Sicknick into their Horst Wessel. Except, people managed to get the facts out and prove they were lying.
———————————
When police arrest violent criminals to protect innocent people, they are condemned as Jackbooted Fascist Stormtroopers.
When police arrest innocent people at the behest of corrupt politicians, they are hailed as National Heroes.
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I would venture to guess that all regimes must maintain the justifying myth to justify holding the mandate of heaven. The more despotic the regime the more strident the demands for allegiance to the myth.
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Yes. Things are fraught not because they’re winning, but because we’re fighting back. Unfortunately that provokes them to insanity.
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Gotterdammerung is a central belief. They won’t win; my concern is that in our interconnected world, they can make us all lose.
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The only way they do that is the doomers convince us to stop fighting, and even then I think that will be gone in a generation. The American CAN DO is infectious and comes back whenever allowed. See the recovery after Carter.
I’m only worried about how hard the crash and how much it will hurt. Very and badly is my guess.
Mind you, if that’s true I’m unlikely to survive, due to health things, but again, that doesn’t matter. it’s the Republic I worry about.
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As someone who lives in Utah, I still find that absolutely terrifying.
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Try to avoid crisp, new bills for your reserve stash. If you have to use a bunch of them at once, onlookers might begin to suspect that you’ve got a stash of them in your residence.
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I carry the bills in my wallet for a couple of weeks after I get them from the ATM. That tends to “break ’em in” a bit. Then they go in the stash.
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Shuffle the bills to prevent obvious sequential serial numbers. Ideally, mix old with new before spending.
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Plenty of mundane scenarious where power out for days to weeks makes cash a good idea. Hurricane damage for one.
Stuff your unspent allowance/walk-around money in an envelope each week. After a while, sort it out into the desired mix of bills. Have plenty to make change. Consolidate some into larger bills. (in other words, dont just have large bills or small) Use any surplus for tips, gifts, or paying for something that would otherwise come out of your account.
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When I got my first (and only) credit card, I looked seriously at what my possible expenses were going to be and deliberately ensured that my credit limit was on the low end of the scale. Anybody steals it, they’re only going to get so much…
…and I always paid my credit card off at the end of the month, to avoid interest rates.
…and I only use it for a very small category of purchases, so I know exactly what is being spent for.
Otherwise, cash or debit card. I created a dummy email a long time ago for “customer loyalty” programs, that I don’t use for anything else.
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All good advice.
I’ve avoided use of debit cards, even prepaid ones but I’ll now give them serious consideration.
I keep one ounce silver rounds around, they keep their value and aren’t subject to the losses possible with green back dollars stored under the mattress. The exchange value easy to check, it just took well less than 30 seconds on line to find the, right now, bid/ask price on silver is $22.88/$22.98 per ounce.
I use virtual credit cards for most of my on line transactions. Yep that still leaves a digital trail back to me but each virtual card is tied to a specific seller, hence impossible for one to steal the number and use elsewhere and I can put a lock date on it, shutting the card down after the purchase.
As Mike Houst said above; “…digital currency will drive barter and an underground black market form of currency instead.” One ounce silver rounds would be an easily stored and transportable medium of exchange in such a situation.
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Make sure you read and understand the contact before you do, especially around who’s liable for what … esp. fraud.
If you’re smart and manage your due dates and rewards, you can make the credit card company lose money.
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Yes. 100%. I suspect we do not make the CC’s we use a lot of money.
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I’ve given prepaid Visa cards as gifts, but they do seem to come with a tacked-on additional price. I haven’t done it recently, but if memory serves, it was 5% or so.
The company gift cards have no surcharge, though it means Home Depot (and so on) already has access to that money. OTOH, it takes little time for me to burn through most of the cards. (Way too many projects had to get done before winter. I’m down to two right now, with a couple of “it would be nice, but…” in the queue.)
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I pay cash any place where my credit card would leave my sight. No, I will not put the card on the restaurant tab and let the waitress go off with it. I tracked one bogus charge down to a restaurant waitress who used the number at Planned Parenthood to buy her contraceptives. Since I wasn’t receiving the normally accompanying perquisites to such a payment, I objected.
I haven’t had the card hacked since I don’t let it leave my sight. It’s been eight years.
Once, way back in the 1970s, I took my then main squeeze to a fancy restaurant. They would not accept cash. No advance warning. I said, ‘Well, then, we’re leaving.’ He said, ‘If you leave without paying the bill, I will have to call the police.’ ‘Good. I’ve always wanted to own a restaurant, and that’s where that will go, very quickly.’ I pulled a twenty out and pointed to the printing on the front. ‘This bill is legal tender for all debts, public and private. You see that? That means if you won’t accept this, I don’t legally owe you anything. Calling the cops is therefore a false police report. So thanks for the free meal.’
The waiter accepted my money and put the meal on his own card, then acted like he was doing me a favor.
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In 2012 we were in Canada. Then they not only had handheld computers to take orders but they scanned the card (now, as of 2023, have you tap) in front of you, card never leaving your sight. Conversationally came up that this tech would soon be all over the US. Well, um, no. But at least there are table computers at most places we frequent. Either that, or have the option to take the bill up to a checkout option. Either way card does not leave our hands.
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I had my debit card number swiped by a kid who had a photographic memory and could read upside down. He was standing near the sales counter at a small computer shop and I bought a drive or memory (this place has often better than mail order prices), and he was reading the works as they were processing it.
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I’m not sure if that’s appalling or impressive.
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Yes.
And of the 15 or so cards he memorized, he used them for Porn sites (mine among them) and 1-900 numbers. Kid was 15-ish.
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I went straight cash for a long time. Problem is that my bank is in my old area, and my job is there, but I’m here, so getting cash can get complicated.
One thing to consider is rewards cards and/or membership cards. They’re linked to your name and phone number, and everything you purchase is tracked. That is not for your benefit. As my BIL says, if it’s free, YOU are the product.
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Kim du Toit has some ….choice words about the rewards card system over intention of use and what is now implemented (those I read were at the old days now gone site, not Splendid Isolation)
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If you are really serious about avoiding footprints.
1) Leave your phone at home, often.
2) Turn it off much/most of the time, with you or at home.
3) Get in the habit of cash culture.
4) Most modern cars with lots of high-tech toys include “where am I?”
5) Understand that changing to this, especially abruptly, is a flag itself.
Pattern analysis showing your phone lingering frequently at “Ahabs Guns and Gold” kinda invalidates the canoe accident. And it is trivial to acquire that location info that maps out your hobbies, friends, hangouts, etc.
If you are taking your active cellphone to your secret bolthole, well, no you are not, really, visiting a secret bolthole.
Learn to understand the footprints, plural, you are leaving, and understand that gaps are also a pattern.
Have fun!
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As I said I’m lazy.
HOWEVER one kind of need to think about what to do if things turn on us.
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Get a wallet that has RFID blocking… or make your own.
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My wallet AND my purse have RFID blocking. (Not paranoid at all. I am not! Really! And I worked for a company that made RFID readers and programs to program them.)
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And of course, beware of accusations of “structuring” your transactions to evade taxes.
Which to mere ordinary folk seems to be the crime of trying not to commit a crime, which police states all love.
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You mean like Obama did when sending the money to Iran?
Federal budget rules specify that anything over 400 million has to have it’s own line item in the appropriation…. so Barak sent it over in 390 million chunks.
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“Pattern analysis showing your phone lingering frequently at “Ahabs Guns and Gold” kinda invalidates the canoe accident.”
sad sigh No sir, I just go there to look longingly all the things I can’t afford, and dream a little. It’s one of the few pleasures in my sad and dreary life.”
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Gun range. Nope, just there to see how people handle different varieties. Besides there is no cell coverage at two of the options locally.
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phone stays home a lot
it get bored easily, see
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“I’m trying to get over my flinch reflex.”
(Yes, I hung around a range at one point with ear pro in order to try to not flinch so much. It did help.)
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“Trying to desensitize my service dog to fireworks and gunshots.”
Someone was actually doing that with what looked like an adolescent yellow lab. Probably a hunting dog prospect instead of a service dog. Same process.
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We did that with the cousins.
It involved leaving the dogs with the vet cousins they wanted to “protect” and not exposing dogs to humans who flipped out.
The dogs were fine.
The humans were the issue.
It it wasn’t a dog who freaked out at loud door slams.
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You do not think for a minute they will beleive that, or even ask you, right?
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Good grief, no, not even if it were true.
… possibly especially not it if were true.
But it’s still an option.
You don’t have to limit your options for verbal jiu-jitsu, just because your enemy won’t believe what you say.
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Don’t say anything to LEOs. Nothing. let Counsel talk. Don’t talk.
Every scrap you give them is used against you. Even “hello”.
For example, it is a federal crime to lie to the FBI in an investigation. So if you falsify your gun range use in a conversation, you are shortly a self-convicted felon. Have fun. Does “PMITA prison” mean anything? It will.
Yeah. “Mistakes” are “lies”. A good investigator/ interrogator can get almost anyone to mis-speak. They are pros. You are not.
Nothing said, no lies.
Not one dang word. Zero.
“You are not a target” is a bald faced lie. If they are talking to you, you are next up for prosecution. if not intentionally for the perp de jure , then to fill the “What else did I accomplish today” queue.
Is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not FB of chat. If you aint them, you are … target. Or same for any other LEO asking questions. Most especially Fed, but also any LEO. And if you ant the perp to convice, you are always “confidential informant” material once compromised.
Not one dang word.
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“Can we-”
“NO.”
“But I didn’t even-”
“I have federal law enforcement friends, and cop friends. They all tell me to always say no, or I’m liable for any damage done. I can’t afford that.”
It’s literally true for searches.
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Last line, suggested correction. “No.” If need more words “No. Talk to my lawyer.”
And -stop-.
This is -useful- to them:
“I have federal law enforcement friends (who? or a lie?) ,
and cop friends (who? or a lie?).
They all tell me (true/false?)
to always say no, or I’m liable for any damage done (inquire/exploit).
I can’t afford that. (inquire/exploit)”
And a pro can dig even more from it. You just gave them yards of cloth to make your jacket.
“No.”
See?
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Depends on if you think they’re actively hostile or not; mine works for stuff where they’re suspicious but not trying to “get” me; yours works if you’re Martha Stewart.
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Or Donald Trump. Or “traditional Catholics”. Or “pro-lifers”.
If you are a member of a group the regime hates, you will be Martha Stewart: someone that is hated enough to invent process crimes against.
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Gosh, Nelson, it’s almost like I chose an innocuous example they really wanted to entrap for a reason or something.
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Or potentially me.
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:Grin: Oh, hon, get my love started on all the ways my “money matters” triggers the “DRUG RUNNER” stuff some tme.
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And this is why I take payment in cash/check for most of my income streams and pay in cash for most purchases, and own a flip phone that I leave home most of the time. None of our family cars have ever been less than 15 years old, and definitely do not have GPS’s. I like my privacy more than convenience.
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Not happy the newer GPSs have WiFi and Bluetooth built in and not disableable(able).
Also, you know how Traffic delays are noted, y’all? By tracking cellphones and their speed along the roads and streets.
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So, add a couple of still-in-the-package burner phones to the Go Bag, right?
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Our default phones are prepaid flip phones. I have one smart phone that runs an app that the travel trailer wants, but it’s usually off, and usually unplugged. (Checks charge level–still 100%) The cell phones are off unless one or the other is away from home–usually me. When I do my road trips west of the Cascades, the phone is always on. The smart phone stays at home so far. The Honda truck and the travel trailer are not friends, so road trips with the combination will be unicorn events.
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Also, if able, get a DeGoogled phone. Forget about an iPhone, even if you turn off all the “right” settings Apple is tracking a LOT and that is also why their battery life sux. ironically one of the better phones to degoogle is the Pixel line from Google.
I got mine (an older OnePlus from Brax.me) when I tethered my kindle to my Android, did a DuckDuckGo browser search for Sunflower Seeds, and my work PC Chrome browser I once, a year before, had logged into for a Gmail I needed and then logged off, started giving me ads for nuts and seeds. There is a reason I use Linux Mint, Vivaldi and Brave browsers at home.
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My default browser is Pale Moon (forked off Firefox before Mozilla “improved” it), but there are incompatibilities, some of which would go away if I were crazy enough to run PM as root. Nope (holds USB thumb drives crossed.) I also run an adblocker and eMatrix for the usual reasons.
So, Firefox gets run for a few things, mostly Twitter and short Youtube videos. (The latter can be run on PM, but it takes a bit of time, and embeds don’t work properly.)
Haven’t mucked with Brave. One of these years…
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Long ago I used Pale Moon. It was on my Work PC in Texas, and back then, I started having issues with it but it still worked better than FF or IE on the sites I had to deal with for work (GHS labeling mostly) I long ago stopped using it at home and was using Opera again (early preFF opera was my first Not M$ browser) until recently when after some time of disappointment the latest few updates were nonfunctional after install, and I had to use Mint’s Time Stamp feature to go back to a working system and/or browser. Orvan steered };-) me to Vivaldi, and I didn’t like some of its ideas so I tried Brave, but it would crash, a lot, but once Opera became a NOPE, Brave and my Mint install started to play well together. I use it primarily and Vivaldi secondary, though mostly by habit except for MotorTrendTV and FLoRacing as ‘Trend would not play in Vivaldi (and the hack wouldn’t work well for me), and FloRacing just plays better and clearer in Brave. now most of what I need to do can be done in either.
Brave does better in ad blocking, and not letting sites know you are ad blocking.
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I’ll have to give Brave (and maybe Vivaldi) a try. I know some of the Pale Moon video issues are related to permissions, and my dithering between having the install package under root vs [ordinary user] has complicated things.
(Goes back to try PM as my normal account again.)
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I didn’t even have a cellphone until 2017, and until 2021 it was only for work.
I was one of the happily unconnected. But I found I was making extra work for a lot of people, or not able to participate in various activities because I didn’t want to pay someone in cash so they could Venmo the money to someone else, or use their phone to read a qr code.
Not such an issue now, but I got in the habit of having a cell phone, and worse, other people got in the habit of me having one. So now I get freakouts if people can’t get hold of me RIGHT NOW, and I work by Hotspot because this area doesn’t have internet service. And yes, I am well aware that the phone without data can still be tracked.
I only carry the phone that doesn’t have a data plan, but I miss being unconnected.
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I leave mine at home unless I’m at work, or on a long-distance trip. I have to have it at work, and my parents insist on the travel bit. I call it “my iLeash.” :P
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We’ve had one cell phone since 1990, because we knew I’d be on the road and out of town 3 – 4x’s/month. Even if routes were (still aren’t) cell phone friendly (no, zip, none, service). We didn’t become a 3 cell phone household (everyone had one) until summer of 2003 (son borrowed mine because he had to ride his bike to school, rained, killed phone). Hubby got his a few years after I did (made getting a hold of him at work a whole lot easier). Hubby and my phone #’s are one apart from each other’s (xxx-xxx-xxx6 VS xxx-xxx-xxx7). We didn’t get smart cell phones until about 12 years ago, or so.
Interesting when we went to Canada in 2019 and couldn’t use our cell phones. We were so used to having them we’d forgotten how to travel without them. Please note, we travel through and to areas that are, if you want to call us, remember the numbers are: Dial-A-Prayer, Dial-A-Tree, and Good-Luck, because these are just as effective in cell tower wilderness drought land. (We did use Wifi calling.) Could have, just the cost was so high, our son said “no” (something about saying “can’t sell our first born, deal”, expensive). We did use Wifi when it was available to use. This last trip, we had our adult son calling us to check on us because we weren’t calling to check in enough (we changed back to Verizon so had full coverage again in Canada and US.)
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When you’re too nuts for James Carville….
https://nypost.com/2023/09/26/james-carville-rips-stupid-far-left-democrats-on-bill-maher-podcast/
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Funny this came out when the one gas credit card I had announced it was going away for a phone app. How about oh hell no? Now it’s cash for gas again because that was the one place that I could USE a card without paying a premium
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Yeah, I’d kind of like the fuel discount that come with joining the Maverik Adventure Club, but as near as I can tell you have to have a smart phone.
Which I, to the best of my ability, never will.
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Yeah, Kroger loves to have the QR codes to load a discount into a smart phone. I try to hit their adverts before shopping, and can load the rewards account from the website. The flip phone is pretty basic, and it’s not compatible with Android nor iOS. (They claim there are apps for it. Never looked hard enough to find any.)
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Funny this came out when the one gas credit card I had announced it was going away for a phone app. How about oh hell no? Now it’s cash for gas again because that was the one place that I could USE a card without paying a premium
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I’m refusing to use the “Wallet” options on either my phone or my Fitbit. I’ve forbidden hubby from doing so (he doesn’t have a Fitbit), recommended the same to son, and mom. They are both adults, so recommend is all I can do.
Just because I worked tech doesn’t mean I have to embrace everything that comes to my attention.
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Having worked tech taught me not to embrace new, especially networked new.
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Naturally, anything I wrote was tested up/down/sideways/in-and-out, and was always delivered working perfectly, the first time. ;-) ;-) ;-)
Anyone believes that, for a fee I know of someone selling ocean front property … in Montana. :-) (Well it was ocean front, a long, long, long, time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and dirt was new.)
Seriously, however. That was the goal. A goal only achievable with user feedback, which means they can’t have gotten a perfect result in the first try.
Fitbit (Google) just released their new phone app (I have the Android version). I hate the layout and the options. What they pointed out as new? Isn’t. Plus they made the app, overall, less flexible than before.
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When that came across my monitor my wife had to bring me my hip waders…..
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Sarah, when I saw this headline on Insty:
“IS THE ATF GOING TO TAKE AN INTEREST IN FOAM SWORDS NOW? LARPing and Violent Extremism.”
all I could think of was this:
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Although this works too:
“Harmless historical nuts
Who wear boiler plate on their bu*ts
Who dress up in clothes from the twelfth century
To bash on each other with sticks and debris
And make up the world’s largest private army
Harmless historical nuts”
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I’d feel better if the last Pennsic we attended hadn’t had merchants selling tasteful little pyrographed pronoun pins.
And some of these Antifa types seem to have some training in shield walls.
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Most of those (various unsuitable for here adjectives) idiots have arms of pasta. Kick that big doorlike shield hard, midway between their arm (usually midpoint-ish) and top, and you can knock out several teeth. Or worse.
heh.
Shield work is a real skill, and best accomplished with serious weight training.
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Most of the time they are on the road.
Do road stuff.
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Well, yes, they have, but ad hoc/amateur-esque training from the things that I saw out of PDX antifa on twitter, et al, during the Summer of Firey Luv. Quite frankly, my thought is if they want to play that, we can play that. With a Viking Shield Wall with sharp spears, sharp swords, sharp and heavy axes, and a good dose of actual unit cohesion and a bigger dose of FUCK YOU.
Additionally, there should be some lads (or lasses) in various overwatch positions for a roughly full 360 coverage with very good glasses and very quiet long distance cordless hole punchers, in case anyone wants to get extra frisky
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My beloved’s preferred spot in the shield wall was using a spear. Pole arm is also nice.
I like the way you think.
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Sure. But you know, that’s MY people they’re messing with, even if I only do it in my head. Is there nothing the officious STASI won’t leave alone?
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You weren’t the only to be reminded of that tune thus.
Gee, it would be nice if “our” (HA!) “Intelligence” (HAW!) agencies had folks with an IQ above the freezing point of water. (Celsius!)
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That list is a hoot, too, whoever wrote the guideline has apparently never run into vampire LARPS.
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“Why do you need live explosives if you’re LARPing?”
“For the same reason Civil War re-enactors shoot real cannon.”
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But but but here in table 1 it says there’s no real weapons, and they try to keep it from looking real!
And why are you guys not friendly, it says that there’s no trouble with law enforcement!
:giggling in reading about probably THE biggest trespassing/failure to file for permit hobby on earth is described, badly, apparently from watching videos of renfaires:
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I started to read, then closed the window when I saw it was from the fibbies. Will have to take a look for the giggles.
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It occurs to me by linking and mocking them I’m now in the crosshairs, if I wasn’t before.
Very well, Stasi. You will find, as my parents did, you can hurt me — and in your case, kill me — but you can’t intimidate me.
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I’m already on so many lists, they’ll just have to get in line.
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You however, can ridicule them. Widely.
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G-d has answered my prayer to make my enemies ridiculous. Abundantly.
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Hello, Stasi, these are my middle fingers. I’ve been hated by bigger, better and certainly more rational than you.
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My use of cash is not so comprehensive. I paid off both my credit cards in full earlier this year (one of them had been at a zero balance previously, until I put some minor expense on it). Since then I have used one only for recurrent predictable monthly expenses such as auto insurance; I pay off the balance every month on that one. The other started out being for incidental purchases; now it also covers some uninsured medical costs—but so far I’ve been able to pay them off in full each month, too. After C stopped using credit cards, I thought that was a good idea, and shifted to making remote purchases with my bank debit card, and making sure I had enough balance to cover them.
I do prefer to make local purchases with cash; knowing how much cash I have in my wallet provides a measure of financial discipline, which I find helpful. It’s not an absolute rule—if we need gas, and I haven’t taken out cash lately, for example, I’ll use the card. But the majority of our local purchases are for cash.
I’ve never bought a prepaid card for myself, though we’ve bought them as gifts from time to time. If I actually have the cash to pay for a prepaid card, it seems as if I can just as well spend the cash, with one less step. But perhaps I’m biased by being a non-driver; a store trip is a bit bigger inconvenience, especially if I’m going to make a separate trip to get the card.
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I put a knife in our bank balance yesterday with tools I need to get the house fixed/ready for winter. Sometime in the next two weeks, I’m going to ruin us with paint for the same reason. Ah well, it’s life.
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One thing I have not found a way to do without a credit card is rent a car.
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Or a hotel room outside of the “fleabag” class.
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It is not a stupid idea to have a small account for these purposes. We have what we call “the net” account, which has $100 at any given time. If I need more, say to send my mom flowers for her birthday (it’s hellish expensive to send roses internationally, but since I was tiny — back then, I raided my best friend’s garden, with her parent’s permission — I have given my mom an armful of roses for her birthday. She’s 89 and I’m not giving up now) I move money over, to the amount I need plus about $50.
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Has anyone mentioned “scrip”? Many churches and schools sell it, and basically you buy gift cards and prepaid visa and such usually with no fee, and a small % goes back to the church or school
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Is that what it is? I keep hearing it mentioned, but I had no idea what it was and in 38 years haven’t figured it out. Well, thank you. Now I know.
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I always thought it was basically private currency, good only at whatever institution issued it.
Like the primitive version of a cafeteria meal card.
There was a MASH episode about it once.
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And the main point of that episode was “You have to exchange all your old scrip for Shiny New Scrip. The old scrip will be worthless after X date:time.”
Which is exactly what the Leftroids want to do with all of our cash.
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(omitting long exposition on how the US currency is 90% of the rest of the world economy, under the table)
Recall or replace the $100, wreck the world.
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When have they ever let mere reality get in the way of what they Want?
They Want total control over every detail of our lives, they can’t control people using cash, ergo, abolish cash. Simple!
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So, if I were going to fly under the government radar, here’s what I might do.
I would set up auto pay for my utilities and keep enough in my account to cover such for a few months. I would use a cc once in a while but keep it paid off. I would have my wages automatically deposited in an account and use that to buy groceries, etc, but take out cash at the store when I do.
Perfectly normal behavior. Nothing to see here.
Cash, what cash? Oh yeah I use that to give away to panhandlers on the street. “That’s a lot of cash you are giving away”, they might say. “Have you seen how many panhandlers there are lately?”
Yep. That’s what I do with it.
Anyway that’s what I might do. But if I was doing that, I probably wouldn’t talk about it on the internet. It is an interesting topic of speculation though.
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What the left doesn’t realize is that we were warned years ago of what they are trying to do. There is not one voice leading us, it is history and intellect, thought itself, that is leading us. We all see shades of Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Animal Farm, in society today. They can’t cut the snakes head off, because the snakes head is knowledge, not a person. The more they try to dumb down the populace, the more it strives to learn. The more lies that are exposed, the more eyes that are opened and the weaker their hold on society. Illegal immigration may very well be their undoing. They have convinced so many people that there is a fixed amount of pie in society, that they have now pitched their own minorities against each other for pieces of that pie. Far from being an army to fight for them, the invaders are a mill stone dividing their own supporters against each other. If those invaders won’t stay and fight in their own countries, why would they fight for their new one? Answer they won’t, once the gravy train is over, they will go home. It will be those faction fights where most of the violence comes from, not from the right. We will just be caught in the middle. While the Gestapo and their ilk hunt the elusive nonexistent Right Wing Maga Leader, the real culprits will be their one time supporters. Supporters who will be jockeying for control of their little pieces of the pie. The end result is always the same, we win, they lose.
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For the most part the left is made up of petulant little children who if they don’t get their way, will take their ball and go home. And the Illegals keep coming. Substitute riot and loot for taking their ball and going home. Philly anyone? It just gets worse for them, their cities are dying, covid was the straw that broke the cities backs, illegal immigration is just putting the cherry on top of a rotting cake. Covid showed the people they didn’t need to go into the cities to do their jobs, now the elites are going broke owning office buildings and shopping centers no one will go to anymore because their own policies have made them unsafe. They have lost and continue to lose billions in cities that have gone so far left there is no coming back. Retail giants are closing stores because of those policies. And the Illegals keep coming. Now those same leftists are reaping the rewards of those policies. The money is fleeing them, and the illegals keep coming and they have no way to raise funds, because it all ran away from those policies. And the illegals keep coming.
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Except it’s not their ball, it’s yours.
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Of Course, the most amusing thing is how frustrated they are that all the Jan 6 witch trials have failed to stop the so called MAGA movement, it has only made it stronger, which is driving the Gestapo crazier. That is why they are now murdering 80 year old men.
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Saw an interesting statement, ‘We are not our government, We are Americans’ . That will be a Meme shortly.
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I mostly use PayPal to put some distance between purchases and my cards.
My bank’s fraud folks are on it when something comes up smelling funny… they cut off cards in a heartbeat.
Since i don’t keep all my money in one place that’s not a serious inconvenience.
Thank goodness I can walk in and get a replacement card the next business day
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On the subject of cash bill denominations:
“In my opinion it is a mistake for the government not to issue the larger denominations ($500, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000) that are authorized by law.” – Milton Friedman.
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