What's in Your Billfold?

realian001 asks: "I have been through many different types of wallets...(those long wallets, tri-fold, bi-fold, money-clips, etc, etc). I finally settled on a bi-fold, but I was just curious, how does the average Slashdot reader 'configure' their wallet? A type of wallet would be a good starting point, then having cash or not, and/or how many different types of credit cards, grocery discount cards, etc etc etc."

Comments

Backup Car Key

[\\]

About the only good thing about my long-gone Toyota Corolla was that the key was near flat and could be copied at my local hardware store. The one time (so far...) that I've locked my keys in my car, I had the backup ready to go.

Re:Backup Car Key

[White-out_On_Screen]

You might want to be careful with that. I carried spare house and car keys in my wallet until a friend of mine had his stolen. I realized that you've got something in there showing your address (your license if nothing else). If you've got that and your keys, you lose your wallet, followed by your car, and then (if you carried a house key too) anything in your house that wasn't aniled down. I perpetually lock my keys in my truck, and I separated my car keys and building (home, work, etc) keys onto a separate rings, and put a spare car key on the house ring. Saved me a few times.

Lots and lots of...

[oldosadmin]

reciepts... mainly so I don't feel bad when I pull it out and there's no money... booyah, it's still thick.

Or my favorite... changing a $20 bill into $1s just to pad my wallet.

Re:Lots and lots of...

[EnronHaliburton2004]

changing a $20 bill into $1s just to pad my wallet.

Yeah I remember you. You owned Boardwalk & Park Place. I landed on Boardwalk and had to pay you like $400 in rent... and then you went to the bank and exchanged my 4 $100 bills for a bunch of $20, $5 and $1 dollar bills ... AND I WAS THE BANKER ... it was like a double whammy.

Re:Lots and lots of...

[GeckoX]

Heh, try being Canadian, we don't have this option.
Typically, we all walk around thinking we're poor because there are very few bills in our wallets...one can only afford to put so many $20+ bills in our wallet. But then you stick your hand in your pocket and pull out a treasure chest worth of gold and silver colored coins and realize you're rich! Well, you can at least afford to buy lunch anyways ;)

(Note for those who don't know about Canadian money: Standard Coinage is 1c, 5c, 10c, 25c, $1 and $2. Bills are $5, $10, $20, $50, $100...however there are something like 10x as many $20 bills out there as all the others combined. It is quite rare for us to have stacks of bills in our wallets anymore. There has actually been rumours going around that they want to make the 5 a coin as well...pretty sure that's bs though, that's really starting to not make sense.

Ducti.

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Ducti

I got a Ducti wallet for x-mas and have loved it. It's been through the washer and dryer 4 or 5 times and still holds tight.

Re:Ducti.

[karnal]

Actually, that'd be a good feature request for mozilla.

Options-no sound from webpages... that would rock.

Duct Tape Wallet

[Timber_Z]

My Wallet

Actually I owned one for about a year, and finally threw it out due to wear and tear a couple of months ago.

It peformed decent as far as wallets go; though I don't think I'll buy another one.

Still the coolness factor was very high, and I got a lot of positive comments about it.

A $20.00 tri-fold I picked up to replace it, has actually creased all my cards, some I am going to have to replace, so my next wallet will be a bi-fold.

Re:Duct Tape Wallet

[CaptainCheese]

I owned one for about a year, and finally threw it out due to wear and tear a couple of months ago.

You threw it out?!? How wasteful! You should have repaired it with duct tape...

Re:Duct Tape Wallet

[Timber_Z]

It came with a strip of Super Duct Tape for repair. I actually could have repaired it if I could have found it. It is important to know that the wallet is not normal Duct tape, It doesn't have the smell, and is a "tad" more cloth like it functionility.

Re:My wallet

[Anonymous Coward]

Middle pockets: Student ID, driver's permit, gym card, health insurance card.
Right pocket: Free Software Foundation membership card (bootable Linux CD, fogged to unbootability by the plastic sleeve it arrived in, and later cracked)

One of these can't be right. Geeks don't go to the gym.

Other helpful information...

[stienman]

I'd also like to know:

* Do you arrange your credit and other raised number cards alternately for a thinner package
* Where you walk late at night
* Coins in the wallet, pocket, or trash
* Account balances and CC limits
* Pictures, and of whom

I'm sure this information will help me become much more efficient in the use of your resources. Thanks!

-Adam

/.opop

[Hadlock]

copy all your blockbuster, tom thumb, kroger, etc etc grocrey store bar code jobbies onto one double sided piece of paper the size of a dollar bill.

Re:/.opop

[Danny Rathjens]

I'm glad you clarifed that the paper should be double-sided. I almost went out and made a mobius strip. ;)

Anyway, I like the 'taxi wallet' format the best. It is pocket shaped and nice and light.
http://www.hammacher.com/publish/70450.asp (first search result)

I only carry some cash and 4 cards: driver license, check card, credit card, and one business card of my dad's with all the phone numbers I haven't memorized of family and friends on the back(nope, no cell phone).

Rubber band

[Wireless Joe]

I hate bulky wallets, so I keep my few cards and bills in my pocket secured with a wide rubber band. It's cheap, functional, and the mailman brings me a new wallet almost every day!

Ruthless efficiency, and *no* wallet

[JavaRob]

I don't use a wallet at all. Instead I have two of those little mylar sleeves that your bank will give you for free to put your ATM card in (just ask). One has my ATM card, driver's license, and "normal use" credit card in it. That goes in my right pocket, along with some cash and a few coins. Nothing else goes in that pocket, because I want to just reach in and take out cash or card w/o any shuffling.

The second mylar sleeve is for my business ATM card and business credit card, with my health insurance card in between. I don't use those nearly as often, so that goes in my left pocket along with a few other less important cards -- video rental, etc., and the junk I end up with during the day, like doctor/dentist appointment cards and restaurant receipts (purchase receipts go in the bag). And car keys if I have no jacket.

That pocket gets cleaned out every night -- appointments get scheduled and the cards get tossed, receipts get tossed, and so on.

Works pretty well, I think. I don't know how I'd work a real wallet -- where do people put them? I don't like stuff in my back pockets.

dents

[Nafai7]

for years I kept every piece of paper that I came upon in an ass-denting, tri-fold wallet. I suspect I have hip problems today as a result.

anyway, I got fed up one day I switched to a very simple bi-fold wallet. it's not so much a wallet as a credit card holder I guess... I can carry the basic few things that I need rather than a bunch of useless crap. Haven't looked back.

long story short, I don't carry all that crap in my wallet any more. that's what glove compartments are for.

Re:Ditto That

[Bastian]

I used to do the same thing both with my Toyota Corolla and my Subaru Loyale.

Now I have a Honda Civic with those laser-cut keys where you have to get copies from the dealer at $bignum apiece, and I miss the security of knowing I had a nice, flat copy in my wallet.

Granted, with the keyless entry system, I shouldn't have to worry about that anymore since I can just lock the doors with it, but I'm not sure I trust them to not be easy to clone.

Re:ergmmm

[quadong]

"no grocery card. got one of the keychain things. much nicer!"

What's even nicer is to shop at grocery stores that don't require you to be willing to carry around an advertisement for them in order to shop there (affordably). (I'm also concerned with the privacy issues, but I think the extra crap they want me to always keep in my pocket actually bothers me more!)

Re:wallet

[techwolf]

Sort of on topic... when I went overseas a few years ago, I took everything out of my wallet and photocopied it, front and back. I keep a copy at home now so if my wallet ever gets lost or stolen, it's amazingly easy to figure out what I lost and I have the phone numbers and account numbers without having to shuffle though old bills.

Washing Machine

[coolhoot2447]

I used to have a wallet, tri-fold. It had my quick reference list of phone numbers, a handful of business cards, every membership card I had ever been issued, some random post-it notes, scraps of paper and when I am lucky some money. It was great, except for the fact that it was HUGE. Well, it turns out that wallets don't like to be left in pants as they go through the washing machine, and when I found my long lost wallet in my pants pocket a week later it contained colored money! My business cards and some post-it notes of mine had bleed onto the bills and turned them pink and green. O, yeah the wash destroyed the wallet too. So, not I use a simple money clip. I put my business cards between my ID and credit card and fold my bills in half over everything else. Slip the whole package into money clip and voila, you've got a slim and easy-accessible wallet alternative. In the end I am glad my wallet was cleaned as it is sooo much better not to have that huge bulge in your pocket all day.

Fossil Wallets

[mcowger]

I know you aren't looking for Wallet suggestions, but I thought I'd pipe in.

I love my Fossil Chicago Super Capacity wallet. It has a flip up ID pocket, space for about 14 cards, + money and 2 hidden spare key pockets.

highly Recommended.

Re:Made from hemp...

[Phleg]

I am on my second one now. They last forever.

...I see.

they went out with powdered wigs

[tod_miller]

Kramer: Mmm... Nice wallet.

Newman: Wallet.

Jerry: What?

Kramer showing Jerry the contents of his pocket

Kramer: Nobody carries wallets anymore. I mean, they went out with powdered wigs. Yeah, see here's what you need. Just a couple of cards and your bankroll.

See, keep the big bills on the outside.

Jerry: That's a five.

cigarette case wallet

[nyquil]

I currently use one of those stylish slimline metal cigarette cases as a wallet. I've been meaning to put an insert in it for cards and whatnot, but just having a stack of cards and some cash under the little spring loaded arm works pretty darn well as is. The nice thing is its only like a quarter of an inch thick, so you can kiss your lower lumbar wallet pain (that you probably didn't even know you had) goodbye, you can't fit a huge amount of crap in it so it forces you to throw out those damn receipts, and since its several layers of steel it might even deflect a bullet. Plus whipping it out with one hand, hitting the spring loaded open button with your thumb and making it flip violently yet smoothly open looks really damn cool (until all your shit flies up in the air because you forgot to make sure it was under the spring arm.) Best wallet ever.

Haven't carried one in years... ever, actually.

[jonadab]

In fact, I don't normally carry ANY of the things people usually put in wallets.
Money? If I carried it with me all the time, it'd get spent, so I leave it at
home until I have a specific reason to take it along. When I do carry money, I
put it deep in a front pocket, where it's less likely to fall out and cannot be
picked without my knowing about it. Credit cards? I don't own any, and don't
want to -- I've seen people screw themselves up badly with those things, and I
don't want any part of it. Driver's license? I maintain a carless pedestrian
lifestyle -- that's the only exercise I get, and otherwise I'd be completely
sedentary. Plus it saves on gas and insurance, to say nothing of the cost of
a car itself and repairs. I do have ID, which I keep in my checkbook, because
when I write checks is the only time I ever need it. Library card? I have my
library card number memorized. Photos of loved ones? I'm a very non-visual
thinker, mostly auditory and conceptual, so photographs don't matter much to
me. What else do people carry around in wallets? Whatever it is, I don't
carry it.

What I *do* carry around all the time goes in my shirt pocket: my short term
memory -- in the form of a small schedue (which is generated by a Perl program
I wrote that uses DateTime and creates an OpenOffice document, which I print),
about two inches by three inches, one month per page, with room to write
things on each day. Also a writing utensil usually, and sometimes a Post-It
or similar with a note to myself about this or that that I need to remember.

Re:Seeing as this is Slashdot...

[ip_vjl]

Seeing as this is Slashdot ... I'm going to guess unused condoms and pink slips.

Um. Regardless of it being Slashdot or anywhere else, I'd like to think that nobody carries used condoms in their wallet.

E. None of the above

[Triumph The Insult C]

I just go upstairs (I live in the basement) and ask my mom

Wallet tech

[lupinstel]

Here is an interesting concept to hold your cards: http://www.chameleonnetwork.com/ This product may be vapourware, but it sounds cool.