Cash money as we know it is just about over.

I'm not talking about this column. I'm talking about the greenback dollars you never seem to have in your pocket.

Those dollar bills, tens and twenties probably don't make it into your fist as often as they once did. In fact, your paycheck probably gets directly deposited into your bank account. You probably write a check for your rent, pay your bills online from your checking account and swipe your debit card while shopping and barhopping.

Maybe you pull out a $20 or two every now and then.

Even Monopoly money is going out of style. The game has introduced an electronic edition, replacing colorful paper cash with swanky debit cards. I wonder if the little girl on the commercial will ever use cash as an adult.
We're inching closer to becoming a cashless society. It's not a bad thing, and it's nothing to be scared of.

As it is, a lot of the paper checks you write are processed electronically.

In this new going-cashless world, you can pick up a soda from a vending machine with the swipe of a card, pay your rent and utilities with a few mouse clicks and shuffle money between banks without ever touching a dollar.
If I tried, I bet I could get by without cash for a long, long time. I could pay at the pump, open bar tabs, split lunch tickets and shop with plastic. Unless my landlord is stuck in the paper-check stone age, I could even pay my rent online.

Plastic might make it harder for some people — the ones who don't understand that you eventually have to pay for the things you charge — to keep their spending under control. But for the people (like me) who can make cash disappear like it's water, going cashless isn't so bad.

I rarely use cash as it is. I'm more likely to swipe a debit or credit card wherever I can.

My credit card gives me frequent-flyer miles for the dollars I spend. As long as I pay my balance at the end of the month, I don't have to pay finance charges. It's a little thing called a grace period.

My debit card refunds a portion of what I've spent at the end of the month. How often does your cash reward you for spending it?

When it comes down to it, cash has very little to do with money nowadays.
 
Money has become just a number on a screen, a figure that's printed on a check or sent to the globe's most remote spaces with the push of a few buttons.

The lack of dollars in this new financial jungle might make money management harder for some people. And if you're one of those people, it's time to start figuring out how you're going to cope.

The future's so cashless, there's no point in buying a money clip.