My Minimalist Wallet

The minimalist wallet - less space, less stuff

Do men still carry leather wallets? The advent of virtual money, and now, the virtual wallet got me to thinking. Has the analog over-stuffed man wallet been, like so  many things, demoted to museum exhibit status?

Alas, the leather billfold seems safe for now as the digital variety has been slow to take over, despite the virtual wallet's ability to hold all the things men put in their pocket purses, except coins, mints, and pictures of the kids.

More than likely a wallet remains on the typical gift list, even for today's digital dads.

The George Castanza Wallet - not minimalist

If there is one on your list, save your money. I have a more practical, less expensive idea I came up with after several unhappy relationships with traditional wallets. If dad is a minimalist like I am, he will appreciate your spartan-minded thoughtfulness.

He will also avoid the "Costanza Wallet". Men's wallets, like George Costanza's on Seinfeld, quickly descend into out of control blobs of leather bound dude detritus. Buying a large-capacity wallet is simply asking for trouble.

I know this because when I was a kid my dad's wallet was the original pocket-busting wasteland. Many things went in, but little ever came out. The constantly growing collection, the size and shape of a squished double-decker burger with all the trimmings, would prematurely wear out any pocket into which it was thrust.

Apparently Pop did not pass on the gene for large wallet carrying. I have always seen wallets bulging at the seams as a case of hoarding on a small scale, and have avoided them. But I have had my own versions of wallet black holes.

My solution for this masculine mayhem was to dispose of the idea of a traditional wallet altogether. I emptied my last old wallet of the things that I actually 'needed', and realized it all amounted to very little. A wallet is a function of commerce after all, and I figured the size of your wallet should fluctuate with the amount of buying that one does.

Rubber bands, or wallets?

A guy not buying anything doesn't need a big wallet, or a regular wallet, or any wallet at all.

In keeping with my mission to reduce my possessions to the most minimal and practical as possible, I concluded that all I needed was a rubber band! There it was - my new 'just enough' wallet.

And even if you do some day get the main dude in your life a digital wallet, what comes along with the device? That's right, a plastic card. I guess you use it to buy things when you can't figure out how to use yet another newfangled gadget.

But where do you put the card when you no longer have a billfold? Or what if you have some cash on hand? Whatever will the man on the move do in this increasingly digital world?

Another minimalist solution, a money clip might work, but that could cost as much as a more traditional wallet. I suggest banishing the massive man wallet to the local museum collection, saving some money, and trying one of my essentially free minimalist wallets.

Note: I am currently using a rubber band from our junk drawer, or 'miscellaneous resource depository' as it is known around here. So far it has lasted many months of service.