What’s In My Wallet? What’s In My Purse?

Posted on | February 13, 2008 |

sjean over at Stacking Pennies did a What’s In My Wallet? post earlier this week and I thought it looked like fun.  Actually, I’ve been meaning to do something similar to this since starting this blog.

Since I have nothing better to do today (ha!), I thought I’d give you all a snapshot of what I carry in my wallet.  And then, because my wallet is just one part of what I carry around with me on a daily basis, I decided to include a snapshot of what’s in my purse.

My Wallet

Because everything that’s important to me and my everyday Suburban Wife existence is the size of a credit card, I carry a credit card wallet.  My wallet is neat black leather Fossil® case that holds my driver’s license, has one external pocket, a main compartment, and a small separate internal pocket.  I bought the wallet maybe 13 or 14 years ago; I’d love to replace it but I’ve never seen anything quite like it again.

My stash of credit and debit cards are organized in order of frequency of use with my main Citibank Dividend card always in front and my Kroger 1-2-3 Rewards card second.  My kids have been around the block enough times to know that if they get into my wallet for any reason, they must always put that Citibank card back in it’s sacred place as the first credit card.  The sight of any other card in that honored spot can and will send me into instant panic mode!

My Amex card is usually third though I’ll probably retire that card altogether when my new American Express Blue Cash® card arrives.  After the Amex card comes my two Chase cards (rarely ever used but carried nonetheless).  Next is my gold Washington Mutual debit card.  It’s the only gold-colored card I have and I think it’s kind of flashy and cute but I rarely use it.  The card is tied to my personal checking account so I use this card when I’m making personal purchases like birthday or anniversary gifts for The Husband.  At the back of the pile I carry my Paypal debit card (business account) and my business debit card from a local bank.

Next come my membership cards — Costco, Safeway (both of which get used regularly, if not frequently), and my Borders Rewards card (which I almost never use and really should remove from my wallet).  Next are my REI co-op membership card and my Barnes & Noble educator’s discount card.  The B&N discount card isn’t used as often as it used to be because I’m only homeschooling one child these days instead of two and now that he’s older we tend to use the Internet and the library more and buy fewer books.  Still, I consider it to be among the upper echelon of wallet contents.

The final membership card is my AARP card.  I don’t believe I’ve ever used the actual card but I do take advantage of my membership every time I have to stay in a hotel.  Although I’m only 43 (and do, according to general consensus, look younger than my actual age), I’ve never had an employee question my AARP membership status.  Kind of disappointing, actually.  I’ve always wanted an excuse to pull my card out and prove the validity of my membership.  Why, if I’m 43, do I qualify for AARP?  Because my significant other (The Husband) is significantly older and, at 72, is a long-standing member 

The one “missing” membership card is my library card.  I use my library membership so often that it was easier to simply memorize my card number.  My actual card is tucked away safely — somewhere. 

Behind my credit and debit cards and my membership cards come my gift cards.  I rarely receive gift cards as gifts.  More often, they are grocery cards I buy from The Daughter’s school as fund-raisers or gift cards that my children receive as gifts but don’t want.  In the latter case, I buy the cards from the kids – or rather “trade” for them.  For example, this past Christmas The Son received a gift card for the Gap.  Well, The Son couldn’t care less about clothes and considers the act of clothes shopping to be one of the cruelest forms of torture imaginable.  What The Son does like, however, is books.  So I buy $25 worth of books for him and he gives me the $25 Gap gift card to apply to clothing purchases I make — usually for him but not always.

At the very back of all my cards in the wallet’s main compartment, just before the paper items (described next), I keep my medical and dental insurance subscriber cards.  I keep them at the very back so I can find them easily and don’t need to go rifling through my stack of credit cards to find them.

Next comes the “paper.”  It’s rather ironic but I happen to have a ton of cash in my wallet right now.  In late January I had to make a last-minute cash withdrawal from The First Bank of Husband because I had to fly out of town to help my mother and sister prepare for my mom’s impending move.  It’s actually quite rare for me to have more than $10 cash at any one time and quite common for me to have absolutely no cash at all.  I don’t like carrying cash because I tend to spend it more easily and with less thought than I spend money if I use a credit card.  But The Husband and I feel that carrying cash when traveling is imperative, so I usually stock up when I have to leave town.  Usually, I return all unspent cash to The Husband immediately upon returning from a trip but as I knew I’d be leaving again soon (this weekend, in fact), I just kept the cash.  So, in this picture, I’m flush with $69 in cash.  Funny thing is, I actually came home with more cash than when I left with because I purchased some groceries for my sister while I was out of town.  Naturally, I put the groceries on a credit card but my sister paid me back in cash.

Behind the cash I carry coupons.  In general, I’m not a big coupon-clipper mostly because the brands I buy rarely, if ever, offer coupons.  I’ve yet to come across a coupon for Horizon products, Coleman beef, or fresh veggies.  But I see know reason pass up the coupons I can use.  Usually my coupons are a mixture of Kroger store coupons, custom-printed coupons I receive in the mail as a result of my Kroger 1-2-3 Rewards credit card usage, plus the few token manufacturer’s coupons for items I do occasionally buy.

At the very back of the main compartment in my wallet, I carefully fold and store the day’s receipts.  I always request a receipt, no matter how small the purchase.  Every receipt goes into my wallet (never in the bag or my pocket) and each night I remove my receipts, record them in my YNAB budget*, and report them here in my Daily $$ entries.  I do find it much easier to keep my budget numbers accurate when I enter my expenses daily; it only takes a few minutes each night.

That’s it for the main compartment — which is the bulk of my wallet contents.  In the small internal pocket I keep frequent buyer punch cards.  We have an almost full Einstein’s Dozen Bucket punch card — it would have been full long ago if I remembered to have it punched more often.  I also have a half-full Einstein’s Sandwich punch card that gets used even less frequently — both because we buy fewer sandwiches and because I rarely remember to use it.  The third punch card currently in my wallet is a full Great Harvest bread card.  I’d forgotten I had that; I should go redeem it for a free loaf of bread soon.  We used to shop at Great Harvest much more often back in the days when I could eat bread but since discovering that I’m allergic to yeast, my bread consumption stopped completely.  The Husband never was a big fan of Great Harvest and it’s a lot easier to simply pick up a loaf of Rudi’s organic whole wheat bread in the grocery store or Costco.

The final compartment in my wallet is the small external pocket.  This is where I stash business cards — for our doctors, hairdressers, therapists, handyman services.  I sort through my business card stash every now and again and cull down the cards to essentials.  I guess I should put most of those people in my cell phone directory and get rid of the cards but so far it’s a project I haven’t gotten around to.  And it’s a good bet that if I ever do get it done, I’ll need to replace my phone shortly afterward. 

My Purse

My wallet is just one item in the pile of things I carry around in my purse — albeit the most important one.  My current purse is a beautiful black Coach bag I bought a year or so ago at the outlet.

[Note:  I always buy Coach; I always buy at the outlet; I don't think I've ever paid over $110 for a purse; I usually carry a purse for 5 or 6 years before deciding it's time for another; I have all of my old Coach bags tucked away in my closet; once I get a new purse, I rarely switch back to an old one unless the size and style is better suited to a specific event -- for example, I recently dug out my old big brown hobo bag when I flew to my mom's because it holds everything pictured plus my digital camera and my meds all in one bag.]

In addition to my wallet, my purse holds (at the time of this photo, at least) my iPod Nano (1st generation — a birthday gift from The Husband 1-1/2 years ago), my asthma inhaler, a small bottle of Advil, a lipstick I haven’t used in probably 2 years, my cell phone (a 5-yo Motorola work-horse that I hope never dies), a pocket appointment calendar with a photo of my children, my checkbook (rarely used but always carried nonetheless), two scrips from my doctor — one for an inhaler aero chamber I need to remember to fill and the other for a hearing test and a recommended doctor, and my four fold-up nylon shopping bags (3 are Chico bags).

If you decide to join the “What’s in my wallet?” fun, be sure to email me or leave a comment so I can come check it out.

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