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Last week, amid the first of the autumn downpours, I did the most satisfying of rainy-day activities: I had a clear-out. And at the bottom of my wardrobe, underneath dusty old insoles and a dishevelled wig from a 2018 fancy dress party, I found my wallet.
What used to be a slate-grey Marc Jacobs purse (admittedly, quite ugly to begin with) had turned green with mould – the zip all rusty and the leather peeling off. But inside was a whole trove of treasures (along with a lot of pointless crap): a tiny birthday card from my niece, a business card from “Bob the sander”, a pebble from Brighton beach, a loyalty card for a since closed-down coffee shop, an old ID (egregious side-fringe and all), a receipt from a thankfully not-closed-down pub, an Oyster card, a hand-drawn map of Dublin scrawled on the back of some Christmas wrapping paper, and a grand total of 29 pence.
It turns out I am not alone in keeping my wallet at the bottom of my wardrobe, where it plays host to billions of bacteria. A new study, published last week by cash machine network Link, found that while 82 per cent of UK adults own a wallet or purse, fewer than half (48 per cent) actually carry one around or consider it essential to their day-to-day lives. Of course, I do occasionally stuff my loose debit card into my jeans pocket, on the odd occasion I need to withdraw some cash or my phone battery is low, but most of the time, I’m one of the 51 per cent of people who just carry a digital wallet on my phone when leaving home. (My work pass floats around at the bottom of my bag, and I no longer carry ID because, unfortunately, I’m way past the threshold for Challenge 21.)
The study was partly commissioned to spotlight society’s over-reliance on digital payments, with concerns over system outages causing disruption in an increasingly cashless world. Just look at what happened in Spain and Portugal a few months ago, when power blackouts meant no one could buy anything unless they had cash. But that’s not the only reason the death of the wallet is something to mourn.
Wallets have always been about more than carrying notes and coins. For many of us, getting our first wallet was a true signifier of being properly grown-up; of having a bank account and responsibilities and bits and bobs. And in the years since, these pouches have become an archive of so many of our memories. My dad is not prone to gushing or making romantic gestures, but I know he’s a softie really because he still keeps, in his wallet, the restaurant receipt from the night he proposed to my mum back in 1991. It’s common practice, too, for people to store dog-eared photos of the people they love in their purses, often behind that small plastic screen – in mine, there was a passport picture of me with an old friend with whom I’ve now lost touch. Or there are little souvenirs from great trips – like a crinkled ferry ticket or a card from the front desk of a swanky hotel.
Sentimental stuff aside, using a wallet – and more specifically, cash (which 59 per cent of us still use weekly) – is also a great way to monitor and control spending. It’s all too easy to just tap away on Apple Pay before realising when we get home that we’ve sunk right down into our overdrafts. On the other hand, when using cash, we feel the physical loss of parting with it, our pockets literally become lighter, and so we’re more likely to think more about what we’re buying. “Do I really need that sandalwood candle?” we might ask ourselves. One article published this week even saw students reporting that they’ve started using cash more, in order to help with budgeting.
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A curious remnant of Ellie Harrison’s wallet: a hand-drawn map of Dublin on Christmas wrapping paper (Supplied)
The death of the wallet is also inextricably linked to screen time. Yes, I carry my phone with me at all times, but it wouldn’t necessarily be gripped in my hand every time I get on public transport or walk in or out of a cafe or shop if I didn’t use it to pay for everything. The very fact that I get it out of my pocket at the entrance to the tube station or when I approach any till means I’m so much more likely to start scrolling, and miss out on what’s happening around me in the real world. I find it sad that we have swapped our wallets, and all their mysterious creases and hidden pockets, for the smooth, cold flatness of an iPhone.
There are upsides, certainly, to waving goodbye to our wallets. It’s one less thing to worry about getting stolen (though phone theft is so off-the-scale that you could argue it would be clever to have a backup on us at all times). And it is always a relief not to be weighed down by lots of stuff, and be as footloose and fancy free as possible.
But I am still mourning the wallet’s slide into extinction. I was horrified to find that I actually had to stare at the 2p coin in my old purse for a couple of seconds to check I was counting my cash correctly. It wasn’t just because it was a bit grimy that it took me a beat to figure out what it was exactly; it was because it had been so long since I’d used one. So I’m going to put my money where my mouth is, and start using a purse again – though I might treat myself to a more attractive and less mould-ridden model. I will be hanging onto the old one too, just so I can dig it out of my now very neat wardrobe again one day, if only for the nostalgia and the precious, scrunched-up memories.