"After a reckless coffee-and-clothing spending spree made a mighty dent in my bank account, I decided I needed to take action. Self-control was one option, but another more drastic route was blunt-force restriction. I would ditch contactless payments, along with debit and credit cards. Instead, I would spend a week relying solely on cash. After subtracting the lavish lattes and Asos deliveries that had massively inflated my average weekly spend, I allowed myself 180 for the basics, including food and travel."
"For safety, I gave myself an extra 20. The first task was to take out 200 in cash from the ATM. But what the hell was my pin number? Thanks to contactless capabilities, I hadn't used this all-important combination of digits in more than a year. Googling how to find it, I discovered I'd have to wait three to five working days to get a letter reminding me of it in the post."
A reckless coffee-and-clothing spending spree prompted a decision to stop using contactless payments, debit and credit cards and rely solely on cash for a week. After subtracting lavish lattes and online purchases, the plan allowed 180 for basics plus a 20 safety buffer; the first task was withdrawing 200 from an ATM, but the PIN had not been used in over a year. Postal retrieval of the PIN would take three to five days, so a bank visit produced the cash. A translucent pencil case at Tesco for 1 became the chosen cash holder; groceries including 1kg chicken and basmati rice were purchased.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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