Declining use of cash

[sweh]

So I had to hit the ATM on Friday for some cash, and when I came to record this I found that this was the first time since January. It made me wonder how my ATM usage has changed over time.

Fortunately I keep records, so I can see how many cash withdrawals I've made per year since 2002:

     54 2002
     61 2003
     59 2004
     57 2005
     43 2006
     27 2007
     27 2008
     33 2009
     24 2010
     24 2011
     16 2012
     10 2013
      9 2014
     10 2015
      9 2016
      2 2017

Now part of that is because I don't go down the pub as frequently, and I no longer buy a sandwich for lunch (both mostly cash activities for me), but it's pretty clear how little I use cash these days!

Comments

[rbarclay]

I've made a quick calculation over my bank statements for the last 10 years (I always take out an .. odd amount when using an ATM, so those withdrawals are very easy to spot). My average has been between 10 and 15 times/year for every year since 2006.
Card payments took off 2012, though: the average before that was 2-3x/time before, and is 7-12x/year since. I blame the plastic-only gas station (which is the only convenient one since - surprise! - 2012).

This is, of course, ignoring online payments.