Australian mum’s checkout trick praised by Barefoot Investor

A mother-of-three has been praised by the Barefoot Investor for her simple advice for saving cash at the checkout – but you’ll need to get in quick.

An Australian shopper has been praised by the Barefoot Investor Scott Pape over her simple tip to save cash at the checkout.

At a time when many Australians are tightening their belts, Rita wrote to the popular author to share her best financial advice.

In a letter to Pape in the Herald Sun, the woman explained that in 2017 she found herself newly single with three children. To make ends meet, she became a house cleaner to three rich women who paid her in cash.

Rita said she also made sure to spend all her money in cash only, including rent and groceries. She would never pay with a card at the checkout.

She said keeping things simple was key – and cash really is king.

Using cash to pay bills avoided many surcharges along the way and also helped her budget, she explained.

“I am convinced it not only saved me hundreds of dollars in surcharge fees that you wrote about last week but also helped me keep to a budget during an extremely stressful time of my life,” Rita wrote.

She still lives by this advice, many years later.

“To this day (seven years on), I still withdraw my spending money each week in $50 and $20 notes. Life is simple with cash!”

Pape replied to Rita in a post, praising her for using cash to save money.

Scott Pape has praised a woman for her money tip. Picture: Essential BOYF Pty Ltd

“You worked out for yourself what a bunch of PhDs from the University of Melbourne and University of Adelaide concluded after analysing data from 11,000 participants,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter whether you use a credit card, a debit card or a buy-now-pay-later service – you are likely to spend more money using cashless methods than when you pay with cash.”

However, you’ll need to get in quick if you want to try out Rita’s trick. Pape cautioned that cash was on the way out.

“Cash is going the way of Kevin Rudd. (It pops up every so often just to let us know that it’s still relevant, only to fade back into oblivion),” Pape wrote.

“Cash is now only used for 16 per cent of transactions, and you can bet your shiny ‘lil fitty that the Commissioner of Taxation is the main one cheering on its demise.

“After all, the ATO’s supercomputer has so much data on you it would make Mark Zuckerberg drool (and it’s only getting more powerful with artificial intelligence).

“Yet, for all its computing power, it’s still no match for a single mum with a dustbuster.”

Cash is king when it comes to shopping. Picture: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It comes as Australians spend more than ever on plastic and the use of cash plummets. This has been sparking banks to close branches, and some to eliminate the use of cash completely.

Spending on debit cards around the nation has hit $581 billion, while transactions made with credit totalled $418 billion, according to analysis of transaction trends by the Australian Banking Association for the year ending March 2024.

Cash is being used less. Picture: NewsWire/Glenn Campbell

In 2007, approximately 70 per cent of all transaction involved cash, however that number dropped to just 13 per cent in late 2022, Reserve Bank figures show.

“The share of in-person transactions made with cash halved over the three years to 2022,” the RBA’s most recent Consumer Payments Survey found.

“Cash is now used less than electronic methods for all transaction sizes. The demographic groups that traditionally used cash more frequently for payments – such as the elderly, those on lower incomes and those in regional areas – saw the largest declines in cash use.”