Zahra Damji and Eleanor Hammerton
The best purchases in life are free. How's that possible, you ask? Well, pay with cash of course! The idea that anything bought with cash is free because the money is spent when you make the withdrawal, not when you make the purchase, is one example of the TikTok phenomenon #girlmath. This belief, which is not gender or age specific, contradicts headlines that suggest people are switching to cash to help them with budgeting. We draw on an online survey of UK adults conducted by the Bank of England in 2023 to explore how people budget in an increasingly digital world. We find that, rather than turning to cash, contactless is king when it comes to budgeting.
