When I was a kid, every birthday I’d wait by the letterbox for a card from my nan. It wasn’t just the careful writing on the floral card wishing me the best, it was the $10 stashed inside. There’s probably not a person over 30 who hasn’t received birthday cash.
Getting loot in the mail was a thrill. I’d add it to my savings. A glass jar full of spare change and hard-earned notes. I used it to buy books, a new Barbie, and when I was 13, my first boob tube for my first boob. My small cash stash gave me agency. It taught me to budget. I also learned delayed gratification. And how to count. And when I was robbed.
To rob me you had to break into my home and put your hand in my jar. Now you just have to scam me after tracing my activity on a bogus website. The flesh and blood hand in my jar is now a cyber finger inside my bank account. And it can reach in from anywhere in the world. While I am sleeping. While I am awake. While I am watching!
I loved my money jar. Unlike the world of credit and ‘get your future self to pay your current self’s debt’ I learnt that expenditure was limited and confined to the contents of said jar. It was my childhood economy. My very own Reserve Bank. When I found out about Layby it blew my mind. You mean I can have something I can’t afford by coming to the shop every week for six weeks with my savings? Holy shit! The shop withheld said object until you were paid up. Now, when you get shit you can’t afford, or don’t even need, they can just reach in and take the money straight out of your account. It’s creepy. But you get heaps of stuff delivered to your door.
As a comedian, when I started, I didn’t even need a bank account. I was paid a wad of cash at the bar after the show. It was brilliant. Sometimes I’d get a cheque; a piece of paper promising me the amount of money written on it. My cheque book now sits untouched in my bottom drawer. It’s a relic of the past. Money isn’t tactile anymore. Our hard labour is rewarded with a ‘bing’ or a green tick. Our poverty is now called ‘declined’.
The Commonwealth Bank predict we will be cashless by 2026. In fact, we are well on the way. In 2007 cash payments accounted for 70 per cent of spending, and at the end of 2022 cash was only 13 per cent of transactions. Younger generations, who haven’t had a ‘lobster’ ($20) in the wallet are perhaps the most well trained for this cashless world. But those with money under the mattress, stashed for emergencies, are not so sure this promised world of ‘convenience’ is so much better, or even convenient.
A power outage leads to instant commercial paralysis. I was standing in the IGA the other day when the power shut down and we all had to abandon our baskets. You can’t shop without power because the systems are all digital. You can’t have your purchases written neatly on the pages of a lined notebook anymore, like they did in the ’40s. That doesn’t feel very convenient. During the floods those of us with the mattress stash could buy fuel when others couldn’t.
My question is – what happens in a crisis? What is the back-up plan that maintains order and stops us looting essentials?
My kids don’t carry wallets. I find it weird. While hard cash seems to have disappeared from my own small leather purse that contains a collection of bank cards, loyalty cards, my driver’s licence and spare change for buskers, I still can’t surrender it and use my phone. Because what happens when your phone runs out of charge – you can’t access your money. I know this, because every time I go to the cafe with my kids, when it comes time to pay, their phones don’t seem to have enough charge to pay. The cashless economy is obviously working for some!
Leaving the house without my wallet, for me, is akin to not wearing pants. I need something tactile that I can rely on. It only takes a power outage and my card collection is just a bunch of useless plastic.
While I adore the convenience of paying a bill on my phone, I understand the social cost. Cash is our last chance to have private transactions.
When we live in an economy with a digital trail of what we earn, what we spend, and where we spend it, we’ve become super vulnerable. We get angry about cameras in our streets, but the reality is that we are under constant digital surveillance anyway. An audit on our spending reveals our secret selves. I don’t want my spending tracked. I don’t want what I purchase to define the algorithms of advertising on my social media feed. No wonder people are anxious. Privacy is dead. Capitalism has finally captured us.
– Mandy Nolan
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
