Todays Observer: Sweden Reverting Back To Cash?

That should be "along with Norway" Serious typo.

This is interesting. I have been toying with the idea of keeping cash in the house 'just in case', but I don't know what a week's supply would mean, and I'm not even sure how I would spend it. Currently I get out £100 when I go to the cashpoint, and it can last for months, as I use cash so rarely. My groceries are delivered, and most of my other shopping is online. I don't suppose the delivery people would take COD, so there wouldn't be much point in that.

I'd be interested to hear others' views on how much would be a sensible balance between having enough and too much cash lying around, and on what they would be likely to spend folding money in 'emergencies'.

I draw out about £100 per week, it’s used in our local for quiz night, meat draw Sunday and Friday night out, farm shop for veg, butcher in the village and if I need fuel for the car.
To go totally cash I reckon about £200/250 a week
Our main grocery shop is done online.

Newspapers, (DH, not me) subs for meetings, raffle tickets, money in charity boxes or donations at a funeral.
Parking meters still take cash here as well as a card, thank goodness.

Enough for a tankful of petrol and a week or two's food?

I have always kept cash in the house. I also carry cash, quite often I've been in a shop, the system goes down or card reader not working. This has resulted in chaos, so I always carry about £50 with me.

Not news at all. It's been a recommendation to keep cash at home for several years in Sweden - 2020 or 2021 perhaps? I have a pot with a few hundred pounds in it.

However if institutions like banks and businesses are hacked then will the cash registers even work? Will cash dispensers work? What are shops doing to do with cash?

Most people don't carry cash these days - I even needed a QR code to buy buns at the primary school stall at the Christmas market.

I like to keep £500 at home.. plenty of opportunities to use cash.. odd jobs, gardener and window cleaner.. I started during covid..

I might start getting some out of the ATM and keeping it under the bed. Joking apart, I always like to have a bit of cash in my purse it’s handy sometimes, unexpectedly.

Whenever I go into the bank to withdraw cash, it is always busy. This would indicate that people are still keen to use cash. It's a big mistake to go cashless, as some supermarkets have already discovered.
I live in fear of someone cleaning out my bank account, so I always have a stash of cash in the house.

I keep sone at home and about £50 in my purse for bits and pieces
I like to have both

I've never stopped using cash. I get mine not from the bank but from my eldest son who as a plumber always has some customers that want to pay in cash. He gives it to me and I do a bank transfer to him to replace what I've had.

mae13

Sweden began experimenting with trying to go completely cashless, starting in 2017, aldo alomh with Norway.

Now, with the increasing number of "outages" and the threat of Russian cyber-attacks, the Swedes are being advised to keep a weeks worth of cash at home "just in case". It seems the experiment to go completely digital is retreating.

I don't suppose cash will ever be completely out of fashion, nor will choice.

We keep quite a bit of cash in a locked box. Cash is good.

I doubt the odd £50 or £100 would be sufficent in the crisis being imagined, i.e. invasion and war, as supply chains would quickly break down and essential commodities become unavailable as people panic-buy. We saw this in the early weeks of the pandemic. You can’t buy what is no longer there.

In times of war, black marketeers quickly emerge demanding any price they wanted for essential goods that they manage to obtain.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/16/sweden-cash-digital-payments-electronic-banking-security

All it says in the Swedish document: In case of crisis or war about money is:

Currency

The ability to make payments in various ways increases your emergency preparedness. You should use cash occasionally. Good to have:

Enough cash for at least one week, preferably in different denominations.

Other payment options – for example, debit or credit cards and digital services.

rib.msb.se/filer/pdf/30874.pdf

I like to keep cash in the house, usually £100.
I will need to get a bit more out this week, as I pay the gardener in cash, and my dance teacher only takes cash - and I owe her for an item of dance wear.
A few local businesses prefer cash too.

We're in France and recently we returned from a week's holiday to find that we'd been burgled , the thieves having destroyed our French Windows and ransacked most of the drawers in our house but they had taken nothing , ignoring our old, second hand computers and a couple of elderly iphones.
Our jewellry , passports and bank and credit cards were with us on the holiday.
The Cops said they were looking for jewellry and cash and quoth I to friends and family that I told about the robbery " we don't keep cash at home because we're not mad".
Makes you think !!!!!
Not disparaging those of you who do keep cash at home(especially small amounts) for obviously well-considered reasons.
We now have a burglar alarm.
Obviously none of our stuff was worth nicking .
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Where best to hide it?
Mind you we are safe. Two floors up with a solid door and deadlock plus 7 good neighbours right by, along the decking.

Someone I know has a safe. She lives in a bungalow with no adjacent neighbours though.

In a small safe.

We have never stopped using cash, if you don’t use it you run the risk of losing it.

I also use cash quite a lot - because of the "If you don't use it you lose it" thing. Also I should think everyone knows by now that businesses get charges for people using cards to pay with - and so appreciate people paying in cash (which they don't get charged for accepting). Most of the businesses where I live now are small local businesses and I know they appreciate the fact that I do pay them in cash.

To me - it's much harder for a thief of any description to steal money from someone like myself who doesn't do online banking/does most of their purchases in cash/etc etc. Not to mention that, if the tills go down in a supermarket, I'm still okay for completing my purchase - but customers paying by card are put out by that.

I started using cash much more in Lockdown - as that leaves no record that I've just been in a shop or whatever and then a bit later that same day was out again for a second time and maybe a third time and all came to more than one hour per day in total. Debit/credit cards would have shown where I was and when - but cash couldnt.

Very rarely use cash, however I wouldn’t be adverse to keeping £150 in the house “just in case” As we have a large household we have a good stock of frozen and non perishable foods.

Gardener, cleaner, window cleaner and hairdresser all take cash, so over £500 a month in cash payments. Not a problem and means I keep using cash.

About the only things we use cash for are tips and car parking at the local hospital. We also have regular 'Nottingham Knocker' that we like to buy from. One or two of the takeaways only take cash.

Our cleaner, gardener and window cleaner are paid by bank transfer.

We have to make a concerted effort to spend cash sometimes so we get change for the car park.

We always have cash in the house and bits in various places in the cars and purses - just in case.

I don’t keep much cash,either. Occasionally the machines at the shops go down and it is handy.

nanna8

I don’t keep much cash,either. Occasionally the machines at the shops go down and it is handy.

I have a few Aussie $ if you're stuck 😀
Mind you, the way the post is these days, they might never get there.