by Dwayne Phillips<\/p>\n
I used a Visa card extensively while taking a walk. My wife didn’t like this. “How can you use a credit card when you are buying something that cost two dollars?” was her usual disdainful question. I understood her dislike for this, but I still used the Visa card.<\/p>\n
Every day I bought several things that cost two or three dollars. I would stop in a gas station, use the restroom, and then buy coffee and maybe a snack as well. Those calories kept me going for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n
I didn’t like to use cash for several reasons. First, I saw cash as something for emergencies, something to use at the rare places that didn’t take Visa. I wanted to have cash on hand in case of trouble that required a person to help me on the side of the road. I am thankful that I never had such an occasion, but if I did, I wanted to be able to repay someone money for their assistance.<\/p>\n
Next, cash means change. That means lots of heavy coins jingling in your pocket, making noise and bouncing against your leg. I carried enough stuff – probably too much stuff – in my pockets already. I didn’t want to carry any more. And yes, change in my pocket bouncing against me legs was\u00a0 painful. Please understand that I walked 15 to 20 miles a day. That is a lot of steps and if a pocketful of change bounces against your leg every step, well it can be painful.<\/p>\n
Looking back on the walk, I found a surprise benefit to using a Visa card for almost everything – memories. I was sitting at my desk in Reston a month after completing the trip. I was reading my Visa card bill to ensure that I wasn’t paying for something I didn’t use (that has happened before). Each little gas station, each little store, each restaurant I visited appeared on my Visa card. Memories, oh the memories. That was a great experience and a great surprise. The Visa card bill was a trail of events on the walk. I loved it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Dwayne Phillips I used a Visa card extensively while taking a walk. My wife didn’t like this. “How can you use a credit card when you are buying something that cost two dollars?” was her usual disdainful question. I understood her dislike for this, but I still used the Visa card. Every day I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[119,110],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-equipment","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":668,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwaynephillips.net\/takingawalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}