Recently visited a country where cash is very much preferred and it was such a breath of fresh air. I thought it would be annoying to have to keep up with the spare change and what not but it was fine and actually felt pretty good. I've since started using cash a lot more at home.
this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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I recently had a trip to Japan and had more mixed opinions about it. Mainly because they have a large variety of coins and oh boy do you end up with a lot of them.
oh boy do you end up with a lot of them.
You just need more practice with the Japan Coin Simulator ;)
https://wendal.itch.io/japanese-money-simulator
Theoretically the most coins you should ever have is 15:
4x 1 yen
1x 5 yen
4x 10 yen
1x 50 yen
4x 100 yen
1x 500 yen
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I live in a country where it has become in a sense illegal not to be listed at an address. If you are not listed at an address, the government flags you as a missing person. If that happens, the banks lock you out of government ID, which is necessary to do basically any type of online banking, and if you have any funds behind an electronic ID wall, you won't be able to access them.
Wtf is the point of all that? Sounds like it just makes the life of homeless people harder for no reason
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Always amazed by how much oppression people can put up with.
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There is this herbal thing that the fda was trying to shut down in a fact free reefer madness esque type campaign, kratom, that endangered drug company profits by amongst other things allowing people to wean themselves off opioids by taking the edge of withdrawals with it. Big business.
Anyway after failing because people in the west organized to defend their rights, the FDA leaned on the credit card companies to not process their transactions. The companies found some out of the country vendor that was willing to process them before long but for a short bit people had to use electronic checks. Which banks are funny about, no one knows how untrustworthy banks are like other banks I figure.
But idk the vendor, the visa and mastercard both work on this. But I've heard of the government doing this a couple of times since, and some private church group doing it to steam to get them to remove some game or something.
That's really interesting I never heard about how kratom was used like that.
Yeah it hits the opiate receptors, not directly though. It hits the kappa, and hits delta ones sideways. In effect it's like codeine, 1/10 morphine strength, but the half life is shorter, a couple of hours, and it is unpleasant after getting a certain amount. But it doesn't by itself hurt you or any organ system or do any damage to the body. In SE Asia where it's native, this relative of the coffee tree is used by locals that chew it's leaves.
It is rather pleasant but very mild, a poor substitute for opiates, but it will cure withdrawals, and you don't need a permission slip from a doctor to get it, or to buy overpriced medication like suboxone that without insurance can be super overpriced if you can't get on a discount deal of some kind I hear, I've never been on it. But also no medical record of being a junkie either.
Well you know the saying, the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. Live your life dude.
I still don't know why USians don't simply use bank transfers. Uses neither cash nor credit cards, perfectly easy.
we have zero say in what payment methods are available to us
companies and banks decide and we're just their little bitches
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Because the US still does not have instant, or near instant bank transfers. ACH bank transfers cost money per transaction, on the order of 0.30-0.50 per transaction, and can much higher for larger transactions.
The US is just incredibly, and uniquely behind when it becomes to accessible payments. This is the reason why "FinTech" such as Cash app, PayPal, and Venmo, in addition to credit cards, are popular - they literally just don't have the infrastructure in place for you to pay back a friend after they pay for a meal.
Every other developed, and even some developing countries, have had fee free instant payments, for the better half of a decade. The UK/Hong Kong have Faster Payment System (FPS). Europe has SEPA, and most countries mandate that transfers cannot charge fees. Australia has Osko. India has Immediate Payments Service.
I read horror stories of USians paying rent by writing cheques or mailing cash to avoid bank transfer fees and subsequently stressing out about fraud. This is just insane to everyone else, who just pays via instant bank transfers.
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Bank transfers here take 3 days typically. And that's business days, so add another one if it's after 4:30 pm, also Saturday, Sunday, and holidays don't count.
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recently found out most banks in the US are not government owned and charge transfer fees for each transfer (up to $40ish for wells fargo)
What do you mean "most?" There's a government-owned bank here? That would be news to me
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Ive never paid for a bank transfer, and we have zelle which works. The reason is Interchange fees for credit cards are high (like 3%) and not capped, banks offer high rewards, sign on bonuses, travel perks etc. using a combination of interchange fees and interest paid. People are drawn to these even if they are losing money in the end due to paying so much interest (people are not financially literate). On the other hand high earners who are smart want to use credit cards for these perks, so alot of high earners will not shop at a place if a credit card is no available, essentially banks, VISA, and high earning yuppies have created a wealth redistribution system that preys on people who take on debt.
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I don't exclusively use cash but I won't buy from any business that won't let me use cash if I choose to. I also do basically zero online shopping for this reason.