Until the time comes when everybody has their own card-reader, the only way to pay for 'treasure' at boot sales is with good old cash and preferably £1 and 50p coins.
It used to be easy to walk into a bank with a £20 note and ask for a bag of £ coins. Luckily it is still possible in Stowmarket but they have to open a desk which aren't regularly manned (or womaned!), pay the £20 note into your account, put your card into their card reader, tap in your pin number (once you've found your glasses) before they almost reluctantly hand over the coins.
To save having to do this I still use cash - notes from the ATM's - to pay for things in most shops and then hang onto the £1's and 50p coins for the boot sales. The only problem is that I end up with a purse full of much smaller loose change which gets heavy, so I regularly empty it into my change tin.
It can be difficult to get hold of cash these days. The last time I tried to get some coins at the bank, they didn't have any!
ReplyDeleteNot everybody wants to use a credit card, or Internet banking. I think it is important that we still have cash
ReplyDeleteApparently the problem of children brought to A and E because they have swallowed a coin has dramatically reduced over recent years... but I agree, we still need cash.
ReplyDeleteI keep using cash for some transactions and I like to keep some in my purse and an emergency note in the glove box of the car. Old fashioned I expect but it has been very useful on occasion.
ReplyDeletePenny
Cash is king at carboot sales. Long may it be so. It's worth collecting coins in a piggy bank or bucket. Shops are always grateful for loose change or bruss the old people call it here in West Cork.
ReplyDeleteSince covid cash has virtually disappeared from my life. Maybe I should go to more carboot sales, experience a nostalgia handlinf coins. Even our laundromats now work on an APP which you pay into (or 'load') from E-banking.
ReplyDeleteMy husband sometimes helps out in a small shop belonging to a friend and she is often short of 'shrapnel', so he usually takes in some bags of change when he goes in and she changes them for notes.
ReplyDeleteHello there
ReplyDeleteWell, It’s amazing how a jar of loose change can feel like a little bonus payday. Your boot sale strategy is clever and now you’ve got £32 to play with, all from coins you barely noticed saving