Sunrise host Nat Barr has revealed she may never look at cash the same way again after abandoning her credit card for an entire week. The presenter took on the cash-only challenge after making co-host Matt “Shirvo” Shirvington swap his smartphone for a basic flip phone, describing the experiment as “a little bit of payback”.
Retailers Welcome Cash Payments
Heading into the week, Barr expected at least some resistance from retailers in an increasingly cashless society. Instead, the opposite happened. “No one blinked an eye. No shop owner said I don’t want it,” she said. “So many shop owners said more and more people are using cash nowadays.”
While Australia hasn’t returned to the cash-heavy habits seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, many business owners told Barr they’d noticed a clear increase in customers paying with notes and coins over the past year. According to the retailers she spoke to, the trend is being driven by two key factors. “They don’t like the fees that they’re charged, and they’re also trying to budget,” Barr explained.
Barr Plans to Continue Using Cash
The experience left such an impression that Barr says she’ll continue using cash, at least some of the time. She found that physically handing over money made her much more aware of where her money was going. “I’m going to keep doing this. It really made me think about what I’m spending,” she said.
Barr admitted the approach may not suit everyone, particularly busy parents making multiple quick trips throughout the day, but said it fit comfortably into her own routine. The biggest downside wasn’t finding places that accepted cash, it was carrying around loose change. “The thing I think that kind of gave me memories is constantly having coins, though,” Shirvo noted.
Laughing about the return of what many Australians affectionately call “shrapnel”, Barr suggested the solution was simple. “I don’t think that’s probably the worst thing that you can deal with in life,” she said, recommending people toss spare coins into a jar at home.
