I’ve always been amazed that people go cashless, meaning they literally walk around and even travel without cash, and just rely on cards to pay.

Credit and debit cards are centralized and can be shut off or denied for all sorts of reasons, or can run into technical issues. BTC/LN is better because it’s decentralized, although it still needs power+internet and merchant acceptance. Cash as physical bearer asset money is great. Of course I wish cash was redeemable for something sound, but maybe in the future that’ll be the case again. In the meantime it’s good to have a few meals or taxis or hotel rooms worth of cash on hand.

I always have a diverse mix of digital and physical payment methods on hand, so I never get caught unable to pay.

So far in life I have only had one instance where I couldn’t pay. I was at a restaurant in Cairo a few years ago and their card machine/connection was down, and were only accepting cash. I had physical US dollars but they were part of a bigger corporate restaurant chain and so didn’t have the flexibility to accept them. My husband normally carries Egyptian currency but didn’t have any on him that day, and since he carried it, I previously did not. Neither did our friend that was with us. So we had to go on an awkward search for an ATM for a while and then come back and pay. And from that point I iterated, so I always carry Egyptian currency in Egypt as well as my other methods. And it has come in handy a bunch of times, when my husband needs some spare cash for tips or something I always have a little stockpile ready to go since I am a stickler about always having a certain amount whereas he is more flexible.

I always have a kind of “prepare for everything” type of mentality and like to be in control of my situation, and thus always have like backups for my backups in various contexts, including payment or being able to access various types of value anywhere, even when such preparation is not really needed.