Cash Purchases Healthier All Around

By: Jason Collazo

Buying food from a farmer’s market where most vendors do not accept payments made by credit card can lead to both healthier eating and spending habits.

 

Here’s how: The local fruits and veggies being peddled by the farmers are the freshest fare money can buy, often harvested mere hours before being set out for sale. Spending real money for farm-fresh food not only benefits your body but your bank statement as well by prohibiting the urge to overspend. In cash-only shopping situations such as farmer’s markets, customers are forced to be conscious of how much they are spending by physically pulling cash out of their pockets and handing it over in exchange for goods. This is completely opposite of what happens in most grocery stores, where consumers load up their wagons with whatever seems appealing and swipe their credit cards in payment.

Recently, a marketing professor at Cornell by the name of Manoj Thomas studied the spending habits of some 1,000 consumers over a 6-month period as they shopped at a chain supermarket. After analyzing the data he collected, Thomas discovered that the use of debit and credit cards inspired shoppers to make more impulsive purchases of “vice products.” Thomas went on to speculate that using plastic to pay for purchases is “emotionally more inert” and “abstract” for customers. Paying with cash is much more palpable.

For impoverished families, the cash-only policy of a farmer’s marketplace can prove to be a huge obstacle looming between them and wholesome eating. Government-supported food stamp programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Women, Infants and Children) and TANF (Temporary Assistance For Needy Families) are typically not viable means of payment at farmer’s markets where small scale vendors are not set up to receive payment by that means. However, some savvy farmer’s markets seem to have found a workable solution to this problem – by having EBT stations set up where shoppers with SNAP benefits can transfer their electronic benefits for which they receive tokens in exchange. These tokens are then accepted by the individual vendors, thus making local fruits and vegetables a feasible option for all, no matter what their financial situation.

Altering your shopping habits to begin buying the bulk of your groceries from a cash-only marketplace such as a farmer’s market will require a bit of extra forethought, firstly to be certain you bring enough cash along to cover your purchases and also some meal-planning to make sure that you make it home with what you need as your creditless checkout will limit, if not eliminate entirely, last-minute deviations from your shopping list. But a little extra planning is really worth your while.

Spending and eating green is the way to go, as it can ultimately have a positive effect on your body and your wallet.

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