Brett Kelly has a huge one in his pants. I mean big. Thick and leathery, too.

His wallet is enormous, and he has some solid tips for recovering information in a lost wallet using—wait for it—Evernote.

I stopped carrying a foldable filing cabinet several years ago. Aside from no longer viewing the world at a 10-degree pitch or looking like I walked out in the middle of a Brazilian butt lift, not carrying a big wallet has the added benefit of never losing a big wallet.

Instead, I carry just a few things in a money clip:

  • 2 credit cards (one for dining rewards; one for everything else)
  • an ATM card
  • my driver’s license
  • some cash

That’s it. Sure I still need the stuff I used to carry, but it’s 2011. I have Evernote, Simplenote, and 1Password now.

  • Evernote holds my insurance cards and miscellaneous scans of other things
  • 1Password securely holds additional credit card numbers, my flexible spending account, etc.
  • Simplenote has my plain text notes—the kinda stuff I might’ve written on a cocktail napkin in the pre-smartphone world.

What about those pesky customer loyalty cards, you ask? I usually just give the cashier my home phone number, which is tied to my card.1

  1. I use my landline number like a throw-away junk e-mail address. I never answer it; I just let Google Voice keep up with voice messages for me. People that really need me have my mobile number. ↩