This blog comes out of a dialogue with a local barista who’s really worked up about a subject that most of us don’t think about at all. So hopefully, if we read, and share this post, and add ideas in comments, we can help to fix this blind spot.

If you use your credit card at a local, indie cafe for a purchase under $5, you’re a douche-bag like many of us.

Here’s some info about what happens when we use our credit cards for small purchases, and how to be a conscious consumer on your daily coffee run:

1. When people use credit cards, according to our cafe source, people tip less—generally baristas make $20-40 less per shift than they used to when credit cards weren’t allowed.

2. When we use our credit cards, we’re giving a cut of our purchase to support multinational corporations (not all are bad, but Visa, Mastercard are all making money off of us all day already, thank you. And the huge banks were, remember, involved in our last economic downfall) instead of our independent, character-full local businesses.

3. Remember: the café has to pay not only a credit card fee, but a fee to a middleman credit card transactions processing company.

4. We’re not keeping our money local. Why’s that matter, beyond guilt and fear? It’s in our own self-interest to support our community, jobs. The more money kept locally the more businesses can support our tax base, which equals parks, safe streets etc. for us. More taxes from business theoretically equals fewer increases in property taxes. More, better independent, shops have more character and keep more jobs locally—making for communities we want to live in and enjoy.

5. Independent shops have a reputation for being pricier. Many cafés will have to raise prices to make up for losses, instead of keeping prices low.

Protip: Get cash back at the grocery, or pick up enough cash at your bank.

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And here’s our solution—I thought about this without any help from Jeanne.

If your concern is getting points or miles, encourage your favorite café to offer a Loyal Patron Card for Cash Users: buy 10 cups with cash, get your 11th free. This will help the cafe attract and keep more loyal patrons and give said patrons an incentive, beyond typical liberal guilt or fear-mongering.