My daughter and grandchildren are visiting, and yesterday we decided to visit the next town to ours, Haddonfield, NJ which is a quaint, colonial era town founded in the 1600’s. Parking there had always been metered on-street parking or metered spots in a few small municipal parking lots. I was surprised when we got there to find no more parking meters. We took a spot in one of the lots, and you pay in advance with plastc via an app on your smartphone. So those of you who’ve so far resisted carrying a smartphone, don’t go to Haddonfield, NJ.
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Reminder to me: Cross Haddonfield off bucket list 
San Francisco offered up free street parking on Sundays. Visited there a couple time a month, dinner and touristing. Then the SF politicos decided they needed more loot. rebooted the parking meters on Sunday. So I stopped going to San Francisco.
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I have no problem with modern technology, but it’s been taken to a point that it’s excluding people from day to day activities.
My teenage son plays baseball competitively. Some tournaments require admission fees for spectators, but cash is not accepted, it’s all by smartphone. So 80 year old grandma drives to a game but can’t get in because she doesn’t use a smartphone.
Some stores/vendors choose not to accept cash either, which is their choice. But my 13 year old daughter who waits for an hour after school for her ride home can’t grab a snack at the donut shop because she doesn’t have a debit card.
I go see our AAA Minor League Baseball team play but have to use my credit card to buy a beer because the stadium no longer accepts cash.
Pretty soon you won’t be able to pay cash for a car.
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Try to pay cash for a car, at least and expensive one, and see how fast the police find you and start asking questions. A friend of my sister sold cars in the 1980s and said that the dealer had a rule to contact the police if anyone tried to buy a new Toyota with cash.
I guess they have a right to ask questions, but if you want to pay in cash anyway, unlikely that desire can be prevented, given the language printed on US currency: “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private”.
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A business last year brought a suit in Federal court that he was being required by the municipality to accept cash, and that the requirement was illegal. He won and did not have to accept cash.
That’s interesting. I guess the language on the currency doesn’t convey any legal right. If you think about it, that’s sort of worrying … lol … One of the poster’s here told a funny story about cash. Told they had to pay cash --only currency accepted – to post a bond. Big job to obtain the cash. Later discovered it was a paperwork error, no bond payment required, so given a check in the same amount as the cash they paid. Poster refused the check, told them since they required cash, he required cash … lol …
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I would offer up two possible solutions for your daughter. One would be a Visa or MasterCard Gift Card. They can be bought at various outlets and you choose how much to load on them. The down side is “some” have usage fees, a percentage of each purchase, or a fee after so many months… some can be reloaded by stopping by various businesses that sell them.
However, my choice is a Visa Spend Card, it is offered by my Credit Union. There is no fee and it is rechargeable online through my bank account, it also has a Chip in it so the “Touch and Go” feature works on it. I can load any amount on it and I can monitor it’s balance online. The downside of this is that it is not a Credit Card and some business will not accept it as they can only charge against it and cannot refund money to it…
For instance, you daughter buys an item that turns out defective and she returns it, but the store will only refund the purchase price in kind (as in refund the card…), but they cannot refund to the Spend Card. I tried to put mine on eBay, but they will not accept it, again because they cannot refund to this card. I use it for incidental expenses that I do not care for a refund…
I guess that the Gift Cards would have the same limitation…
Any case, one of these options would give your daughter access to spending cash for those all important trips for a snack at the Donut Shop. Also, on the plus side, it gives her experience with plastic money and teaches her to budget her money, especially if you only load “X” dollars a week and she decides to treat her friends and blows her whole budget in a day or two, then she’ll have to live the Dry Spell the rest of the week until you reload her card…
I have given these to some of my Grandkids, If they do not spend all the allotment, I let them keep it like a savings in case they want to buy something big. When they save over $100, I take the bulk of it back for safe keeping, in case they should lose the card (it’s as good as cash if found…), and they only have to call, email, text me and I’ll reload it immediately, no explanation needed, it’s their money…
Good Luck and when it is time for her wedding, she will know the value of money…
I’ll bet their lawyer did not have that rule and wanted cash up front…
The difference is, the ballpark concessions, admissions and donut shop are very high volume transactions. Handling cash takes more time than the customer waving a phone over the terminal or paying with debit. Plus, it’s more secure for the business when everything is electronic. It’s a win all around with the exception of the small, and smaller every day, group that have no means to pay other than cash. I see old Grandmas can hardly walk anymore using ApplePay with an iPhone… 
Forgot to add, I was rather surprised at this guy who threw a hissy fit at the muffler shop because they wouldn’t take his paper, personal check. Too much fraud they stopped taking them. But I can’t recall the last time I wrote a physical check for anything.
My wife is a lawyer( now retired) and prior to retirement had no ability to accept cash for her fees.
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I accept that and actually have experienced that myself. While visiting my lawyer to sign some papers, I wanted to buy a soda from the machine and it would only accept correct change. The secretary was hesitant to break out the petty cash to break a $5.00. I guess she thought I might come back and rob her… My lawyer told her I was OK.
What I was really referring to was Payment in Full…
Do you remember the TV show “The Practice?” the head of the firm, “Bobby Donnell” (played by Dylan McDermott) often accepted payment of cash, wrapped by rubber bands, carried in a sport bag, by the defendant’s muscle?…
I actually disliked the show after a while as Bobby almost cried as he gave his closing arguments to prove the innocence of his clients…
The attorneys i know that routinely accept cash are all criminal defense attorneys. Im fairly certain that very little of it is declared as income.
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Ah, she’s smart as a whip and handles money quite well. She has an hour and a half every school day until my wife can pick her up and has budgeted for what she wants. She will buy a treat at a shop one day a week, and other than that she’ll pack a snack from home so she can save money for those earrings she saw in the window.
My son, well, my wife likes to say his wallet is closed up tighter than his b*tthole. We have to constantly remind him that it’s OK to spend money once in a while. Once when he was about 10 we were cleaning up after dinner and I said “Everyone in the car, we are going for ice cream.” He asked if he could stay home and have $5 instead.
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I was stationed at a NATO base in Naples Italy in the late 1970’s. Back then, shopping downtown and even in “Thieves Alley” was not a dangerous activity… I saw on several occasions US money with statins on it. I am a child of the '50s and I did use fountain pens and sometime spilled the ink, but pen ink is dark and it’s relatively opaque, you can still see the image on the money through the ink. But his stain was more like paint…
In retrospect, I wonder if that was money that had been stained by an “INK PACK” from a robbery. Perhaps, strained money was dumped in other countries were it did not get scrutinized like it would here in the US…
I wrote a while back about Firestone dumping all their Recalled tires in the late 1970’s in Europe and While I was in Italy, I bought some of these tires only to have the tread separate on me also…
Remind your son that life is full of memories and some memories cost money… Your daughter will remember going out with you and your wife for ice cream all her life and may even tell her own children about going out for ice cream with their Grandparents. Your son will never tell his children how he saved $5.00 by sitting at home, alone, and counting his money instead of enjoying an ice cream with the family…
No one ever lied on their deathbed and said, “I wish I counted my money more often…”
My absolutely best memory was when I was about 7-years old. My Grandfather worked for the New York State Department of Highways and he worked the “Soils” department and he travelled out to take samples to determine the load the ground would take and he took me along. I got my first ride in a steamroller and on a road-grader that day. We stopped at a local establishment and he bought a beer and I got a Coke and we shared a Batch of French Fries wrapped in newspaper in a paper bag. Now those are memories… And on my deathbed, I hope to be thinking of those fries…
St. Paul converted some years ago. You didn’t need a phone though. Parked, noted the stall, then hunted down the pay box and registered the stall number. A little confusing the first time. Parking ramps now too.
I’m pretty sure that is a lie. In fact, I am sure lots of people wish that they had earned more money, saved more money, and invested their money better. Sure, you can’t take it with you, but you can leave an inheritance for your significant other and/or kids.
Buffalo used to have some free on street parking a pretty far walk from downtown that only cheapskates like me used. They now pit expensive new cashless meters in those spaces that require a smartphone.
Nobody uses them because they are too far away for people to be willing to pay for them.
I no longer feel a need to go into downtown Buffalo. I do not have or know how to use a smartphone. My wife has a smartphone I bought for $49 on ebay, it came with 1500 minutes and a years service. Neither one of us know how to do anything but make and receive calls. I could not figure out how to receive calls for months. You have to put a finger on the green phone on the left and drag it in a straight line across to the red [hone on the right. Hardly intuitive, why don’t these things come with simple instructions.
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The people they defended must have been successful if they could afford a lawyer. Otherwise they would have a public defender and they are paid by the state.
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