I always avoid paying in cash if I can as it just makes more sense to use the credit card and earn cashback rewards. People often say the opposite where you should avoid using the credit card as it is a debt creator but you should only be spending what you have. Who doesn’t want hundreds of extra dollars a year just for buying things you normally do this way with no increase in debt? But what was fascinating was I was walking by a group of people at a store and they were actually debating about which gift card to buy as a way to spend the money instead of a straight credit card payment.
Why is that? In this case there appeared to be deals such as if you buy a $50 gift card they will actually give you a $5 bonus. That makes sense if you were going to buy something expensive at the electronics store as an example. People were also saying that if they bought a particular restaurant’s gift card they would actually give you a coupon for say a free burger. They were pretty meticulous in terms of deciding what was the best value.
But it was a great example on how there are so many ways to save and make extra money by avoid straight cash payment of possible. And yes, I know some places take cash only that offer better deals. But the majority of transactions you should take advantage of those free offers and cash.