Monday, June 29, 2009

cash only

i've acclimated to B.A.'s cash based society.

i realized today that i haven't logged onto my bank account or credit card accounts in months. this is something i used to do on a daily basis.

i didn't even realize until today that my citi card is now owned by bank of america. i realized this when i went to log-in to pay for my visit home in a couple weeks.

here, i get paid in cash. usually in 2 or 3 installments because my boss can't take all of my monthly salary out of the atm at once. i pay my rent in cash, i pay for groceries and food at restaurants in cash. well, everything i pay for in cash. this is very different from my life in the u.s.. in the u.s., at any given point i probably only had $20 on me.

the idea of paying cash for everything was weird when i first arrived. now it seems normal. it actually felt strange to log-on to my bank and credit card today.

*you can use credit cards in buenos aires. i have on occasion, but it's not nearly as common as in the states.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

cash is king

yillabean said...

how much cash do you typically carry in the u.s.? do you pay for many things with cash?

Nancy said...

Dave and I are cash users. We get out money every payday to last us until the next for expenses such as gas and food. The normal bills are all automatically deducted.

jenna said...

funny. people use debit cards here to buy $3 worth of stuff in the convenience store. i kind of like the "cash based thing." i tend to spend less, b/c i can see the money visibly dwindling.

yillabean said...

thanks for your responses. i didn't realize that cash was still king in the u.s.. before leaving i used my credit card for anything and everything (trying to earn points while also keeping one monthly tally of my spending).

it really felt weird for me to always have cash on me when i first moved here. i didn't like to have to try to predict how much money i should take with me since i never had to in the u.s. with the credit card.

you guys would be great in b.a.!