Strategies for splitting your pocket carry
As a general rule with wallets, less is more. A small and well organised pocket piece will beat a bulging Costanza every time.
But as we’ve pushed that thinking further, we’ve realised that sometimes two wallets can be better than one. For certain people, splitting your wallet in two can let you optimize what you keep where, and reduce a bulging wallet filled with cards you only use once a year…
So we’ve started rounding up some great examples of Two Wallet Carrying. These are all examples we’ve seen used well, however they are by no means exhaustive. If you’ve seen a great Two Wallet system, we’d love to hear about it in the comments.
The Shop Card carry
Every shop wants your loyalty these days, and the way they seek it is by weighing you down with plastic cards that they expect you to carry everywhere. While many of these are just a customer number that you can enter in your phone or Evernote, many others want you carrying that little magnetic strip.
The solution? A second small wallet, filled with all your shop cards that you keep in your bag. Your daily wallet can then be slimmed and optimized, and these mountains of loyalty cards then stay out of the way.
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Tradies Cert Card carry
Not only do trades-people have to deal with hardware & supplier loyalty cards, they also have to haul a bunch of certification cards around with them in case the inspectors ever inspect.
The Solution? Again, it’s a small wallet with all these bundled together which you keep in your vehicle. That leaves your pockets slim, so you won’t keep catching your pocket bulge in your circular saw.
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The Traveler
This one is pretty common. When you travel, you don’t need most of your cards, so they can hang together in your suitcase. The tricky bit is that you often need your passport on you, so a slim passport sleeve or passport wallet becomes your friend instead.
Mugger Decoy
Yep, this one’s for real. We have readers who live in some pretty heavy cities, where mugging is more common than using that library card. So while your valuable money and cards are kept in a slim card wallet, some decoys and a small note or two go into another wallet, which can be handed over without stress. Does this sound a bit movie-like? Yeah, it did to us as well, but we have readers that can get mugged multiple times in a year, and it saves them some serious hassle.
image via Lifehacker’s recent article about Mugging & Wallets.
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Business card carry
Another common one, especially for sales crew or guys that live by their business cards. The trick with this one is to keep your business cards looking good, without looking like you’re a professional business-card-hander-out-erer. Go for something that looks like a slim card sleeve (so they could think it’s your regular wallet), rather than one of those naff cigarette tin looking things.
Bum Equalizer
No, seriously. We have a Carryologist that lives in Indonesia who got sick of sitting sideways. The solution was to split his wallet into two, and pop one in each back pocket. Kinda ingenious really…
What have we missed? Go on, start sharing your ideas in the comments. It becomes addictive you know…
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Note: It’s worth mentioning that Carryology gets lots of support from a wallet company called Bellroy (which is partly how we are so aware of all these 2 wallet strategies). This post was not a blatant attempt to suck up to them, but rather a bit of fun where we stole some of their images to help communicate. If you are choosing to start a 2 wallet strategy, we’re just as happy if you do it with a duct tape and unicorn horn wallet.
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Hmmm… I carry two wallets lately. One hard steel case to keep business cards clean and straight, and one soft for the cash and cards. Odd side effect: the left side of my body has become business, and the right side is now personal.
Haha, left brain/right brain stuff. Love it!
I’ve been thinking about moving to a two wallet system for a while now. There’s two basic reasons. 1). Sitting on my brick of a wallet will leave me with back pains after a couple of hours and 2.) security. I’m not really as concerned about security, but it would be really irritating to replace IDs, etc.
I think that I’m going to pick up a small front pocket wallet for easy access, and then put IDs, etc in my other wallet, and throw it in whatever back I’m carrying that day (I rarely don’t have a bag).
Interesting stuff…
Dan,
we’re keen on all small wallets going in your front pocket/s. It’s better for your back, your but, and the cards (less weight trying to break them).
If you can slim your wallet enough, wallet goes in one side, phone in the other, and you’re balanced like a gymnast.
I your wallet gets too big, just get a bigger phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMfL7TOyiMw
i am actually doing this system very soon. i ordered that very protective wallet from bellroy and a titanium money clip. the latter will hold all the paper money. the wallet will hold all my primary cards, coins, spare key and receipts, secondary cards may go on the clip.
Thanks! Love the latest post.
What are the chances you could create a forum to discuss off-topic subjects?
As a new professional in carry, this could be a great resource to connect me to other people in this field!
Thanks!
Yeah, that would be neat wouldn’t it…
One of our contributors Taylor is keen to try and get something like this going. It’s a bit of work to manage though, so we’ve been trying to work out how we could share around the duties.
Ummm, maybe in a few months? We’ll keep bouncing it around and see if we can drum up some other help to keep it rolling, as it would be rad to help all our carry community explore more carry in more depth.
I would volunteer moderate the forum if needed.
Thanks for considering it, and keep up the great work!
a forum would be neat. this is a great site with great reviews. all it needs is a resourceful forum. i am looking forward to this.
OK, OK, it’s sounding like we need to start work on a carry forum. Let us settle in the new site, reveal a few rad new sections we’ve been working on, and then we’ll start work on a forum in the new year. Oh, and I think we’ll need a few volunteers, so that John and anyone else that can spare some time going forwards.
Thanks guys, it’s rad to see the carry community growing so strongly!
A forum is extremely easy to get started but a lot of work to get running, relevant, and keep secure.
I am at your beck and call, and nothing without the support of a community. Suddenly my studio is feeling a little bigger. Thanks.
oh, a question about the first photo in this thread, the one with the two pencils in it. is that a bellroy very small wallet?
Haha, yeah, but an early proto when the guys were still running an elastic rather than a pocket on the side wall.