My Favorite Travel Wallet: Big Skinny Women’s Slim Wallet

 

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Any other gals out there carry around a brick of a wallet in their purse? I did too, for years. It was huge. It was heavy. And it literally was almost the size of a brick in my purse. There was no way I would every have used it for a travel wallet.

Recently I wanted to downsize my daily purse to a smaller cross-body bag. I loved the inexpensive purse I bought, but I couldn’t keep it zipped…my wallet was so big that the purse zipper kept popping itself open! Rather than resign myself to a bigger purse (again), I decided to investigate whether I could find a smaller wallet that could possibly also serve as a travel wallet on domestic and local trips.

Honestly, I was pretty skeptical. I was pretty sure I was going to have to greatly reduce the quantity of stuff I carried around in my wallet in order to achieve this goal. And yes, I did purge a little. But I found a fantastic wallet that carries almost everything my old one did, but at less than half of the thickness of my old wallet.

For more of World is Wide’s travel gear recommendations, look here.

My New Favorite Travel Wallet: Big Skinny Women’s Slimvelope Tri-Fold Checkbook Slim Wallet

My new everyday wallet (and likely my wallet for many of my travels moving forward) is the Big Skinny Women’s Slimvelope Tri-Fold Checkbook Slim Wallet. A mouthful of a name for a slim, sleek wallet! I have the teal color shown here.

Isn’t she pretty?

I tend to use a travel purse for my trips. Until recently I would also transfer only a few of my wallet items (credit card, driver’s license, ATM card, and cash) to a small travel wallet when I traveled. My new daily wallet solution can also function as a travel wallet for most of my trips. I can’t tell you how excited that makes me!

 

How Small Is This Travel Wallet?

Length and Width

According to Amazon’s specifications, this wallet comes to you measuring 7.5″ x 4″ x 0.27″ when folded up in a tri-fold. The 7.5″ x 4″ dimensions are pretty standard for a folded tri-fold wallet. Here’s what mine looks like opened up. (Note: I usually have my driver’s license and insurance cards in the clear ID pockets. I took them out for the photo.)

As you can see, this is a pretty standard tri-fold wallet layout. Each of the credit card pockets will hold up to three more cards behind it. For example, behind my Citi card on the bottom left, I have three gift cards stacked behind it in the same pocket. So it’s deceptively capable of holding lots of cards.

I haven’t carried a check book with me for over 20 years, so I can’t speak to whether this wallet easily holds one (though the word “checkbook” is in its name, so I have to assume it will).

Depth

It’s the side profile of this Big Skinny travel wallet that is where its beauty truly lies. 

Below are a couple pictures to demonstrate just how narrow the profile of this wallet is, despite being full of my cards, cash and receipts. I’ve been using it for over four months, so it’s had some time to accumulate stuff in it.  On the left is my old cell phone, which is almost identical in size to my current phone (which I was using to take photos 🙂 ).

I wish I would have hung onto my old wallet or taken photos of it before I unceremoniously tossed it in the trash. Frankly, once I switched over to my Big Skinny travel wallet, I couldn’t get rid of that old clunker fast enough! This wallet is easily less than half the thickness of my old wallet. And anecdotally I can tell you that it definitely weights less than my old one. You can also see that it’s probably only maybe twice as thick as my cell phone.

For what it’s worth, coins go in a zipper pocket on the back side of the wallet, which is a layout I like. I had eight quarters in my coin pocket in these photos.

Durability

I’ve been using this wallet for about four months now. I was worried about the nylon fabric and interior not withstanding stains or stress on the seams. So far, so good. It still looks like new. (Amazon reviews for it are positive as well.) According to Amazon, it’s also machine washable, which I have not tried yet.

Overall Impressions

I love the Big Skinny Women’s Slimvelope Tri-Fold Checkbook Slim Wallet! It’s perfect for everyday use. I love that behind the cash pocket is a divider behind which I can keep receipts. It has plenty of pocket space for cards. And it’s so much lighter and less bulky than traditional wallets I’ve had. 

Honestly, I haven’t come across any downsides to this wallet yet. I guess if you still like to carry wallet-sized pictures with you in your wallet, you may not have room for the the little wallet album. But seriously, we all keep pictures on our cell phones these days, right? I’m reaching here for a downside to this wallet, as you can tell.

I guess if you’re big on brand-name stuff, this wallet isn’t very sexy. But as I’ve said many times, there’s a reason I don’t write about fashion…I’m all about the function, and this travel wallet is a winner in that category.

As a bonus, I believe I’ll be able to use this wallet as a travel wallet for most short trips. There may still be a few trips where I decide to use my old travel wallet, but for most trips where I think I’ll want a lot of my normal wallet contents (especially going to visit family out of state, day trips, etc.), my daily wallet will now be my travel wallet!

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