Mine is the world’s thinnest wallet. It’s been in my front pocket for years and years.

It is two pieces of thin leather. One folds out, the other is folded over and stitched to form the pocket. The pocket is stitched to one half of the piece that unfolds, which itself acts as the cover.

It is nearly unnoticeable.

My license slides out from the pocket. Cards sit behind the pocket, with bills that unfold when I open the billfold.

I need a new one. No one sells one. So I’ll have this one restitched. And it will last as long as I do.

Silly vendors.

Sorry but Parkinson’s Law does not apply. No one wants to maximize what they carry so a bigger wallet is not going to cause someone to think “Gosh! Look at all this space! Now I can carry an emergency tube of toothpaste in my wallet!”

The wallets you suggested are ridiculous for real-world situations. Maybe it works for the latte-sipping crowd, but for real people these would only be useful for 1-day events where you’d believe your wallet would stand a good chance of getting lost.

Leave my photos at home? First of all, I haven’t kept photos in my wallet for nearly 15 years. Second, if this blog wants to be helpful (while stating the obvious on photos) then why not recommend putting the photos onto your phone? The Flickr comment is useless because it cannot be used as a substitute for what wallet photos are used for.

Review my wallet regularly? Obviously people don’t do this because it’s a difficult habit to create, not because they never thought of it as you seem to imply.

Stop using cash? Oh that’s a great idea, until I come across the inevitable transaction situation where cash is mandantory. I guess I can turn around and drive home in those situations and pick up some cash.

Use only one credit card? So what if I like the financial benefits of using my Discover Card for the cashback, and my Mastercard for the places where they don’t take Discover? What about my business credit cards? Should I just buy everything business and personal on my personal Mastercard so I can get away with only 1 card?

Put my rewards cards onto a carabiner? Great, I can see it now: I’m in the store with a pile of things and my card is out in the truck. I already do keep those things out in the truck and most of the time I do not have them with me when I shop: remember that “psychic” thing I said earlier? A more useful suggestion would be to see if you can use the benefits of the card by giving the cashier your phone number, or by using that reward card app on the Iphone.

You said “These proliferate because it feels special to be a member of anything” – I hope you were kidding and not anything close to being so superficial that you’d actually think a rewards card that is handed out to ANYONE would make you feel special. Are you the kind of person who hands out those bogus participation trophies to kids for accomplishing nothing?