The Wallet Shoppe
These days you can use your phone to shop, pay your bills and ride the bus. So a lot of people have started asking: do people still use wallets? Are wallets going the way of the dinosaur?
It’s true, your phone gives you plenty of reasons to imagine ditching your wallet. Contactless phones, watches and even rings can pay for things. Boarding passes live on your phone, and some states now offer a digital driver’s license. It used to be that most people carried a picture of their loved ones in their wallet; your phone has that beat with thousands. (Although there’s something to be said for the physicality of a real picture.)
So sure, technology gives us plenty of reasons to think about ditching our wallets. But it’s unlikely we will any time soon. You may well need a smaller one than you used to, though. Here’s why we think the wallet is here to stay.
1. Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
It’s risky to keep everything in one place. Putting your cards on your phone is convenient, but what happens if your phone is lost or stolen? Now as well as losing the cards, you’ve lost the phone you’d use to call your bank and cancel them!
OK, you can borrow a phone, but what do you do for the rest of the day? Borrow cash to get home? A physical card kept separately is a cheap insurance policy. (And if you keep all your cards in a phone-case wallet, you’ve just put the eggs back in the one basket.)
2. Phones Run Out of Battery
Who hasn’t seen that dreaded “Low Power Mode” come on? Forget to charge your phone overnight and it might die halfway through the afternoon. You can carry a portable charger, but now you’re carrying something else anyway (and did you remember to charge your charger?).
3. You Still Need to Prove Who You Are
Digital IDs are spreading, but plenty of places, officials and other states still want to see a physical license. Check before you leave yours at home, especially when you’re traveling. A card slot takes up very little room.
4. Not Every Card Has Moved to Your Phone
Your transit pass, work access card, gym membership or paper ticket may still need a pocket. Tap-to-pay transit has spread a lot, but it isn’t everywhere yet, so base your setup on the services you actually use.
5. You’ll Still Need Cash
Cash isn’t the must-have it once was, but there are times when it comes in handy. Your favorite neighborhood restaurant may only take cash. A tip, a farmers’ market, a parking machine. And let’s face it, no technology is perfect: systems go down, and the emergency cash in your wallet may be the only way to pay for something.
6. Not Everybody Wants to Pay by Phone
Some people simply prefer to pay with cash or a card, maybe to keep a closer eye on their spending, maybe because they don’t want another app. That’s a perfectly good reason. Use what works for you and the places you shop.
7. Style (and the Wristwatch Analogy)
Unlike jewelry, a wallet does a practical job. But like jewelry, it also says something about the person who carries it. Wallets are popular gifts too: there are certain gifts that mark milestones in life, like a beautiful pen, a stylish watch, or a classic leather wallet. Gifts meant to last, maybe even become heirlooms.
Perhaps the best comparison is the wristwatch. Pretty much no one actually needs one anymore. Half the time we see people checking the time on their phone even when they have a watch on! (To be fair, the phone’s clock is set over the network, from servers tied to atomic clocks, so it’s hard to beat.) Wristwatches, especially mechanical ones, are technically obsolete. But people still love them, as accessories and as a way to say something about the wearer.
Wallets are going the same way. And with all the different sizes, materials and designs out there, the makers certainly seem to think wallets are going to stick around.
So Are Wallets Obsolete?
No. They’re convenient, they’re a good backup for emergencies, and you don’t have to be tech-savvy to use one. We’d recommend even the most digitally-savvy carry a thin wallet with a couple of payment cards, their driver’s license and some cash.
But it’s certainly true that more and more people will move more and more things out of their wallets and onto their phones. Frankly, we’re all for it. We’ve long been advocates of the slim wallet movement, and we see wallets becoming less of a catch-all and more of a slimmed-down style accessory.
Ready to trim yours? Lay out what you carried this week, separate what you actually used from what you carried out of habit, and see our wallet slim-down guide. Then take a look at the different types of wallets and see which one says, “this is me”.
