Since deciding to become a minimalist, I often find myself wondering “what’s the perfect minimalist wallet [pony] for me?”
Now I just don’t want any wallet [pony]. I want The Minimalist’s Wallet [Pony]. I want a palm-sized piece of fabric that holds pieces of paper and plastic in such a way that my entire life is dramatically simplified and streamlined.
So I spend hours online researching and looking up different types…should it have a coin pouch? should it be vegan or local? should it fold in half or not? should I sew it myself? what do other minimalists use?
After months of searching, and reading through other minimalists’ “100 things lists” I have found it. The Ultimate Most Minimal Wallet…[Pony]…and I wanted to share it with you…[and I believe in this so fully, that I decided not to affiliate link]
The most simple wallet turns out to be…the one you already have.
In fact, the most minimal anything normally turns out to be the one you already have.
So often in the excitement of throwing things away and focusing our life we can get caught up in trying to find The Perfect Minimalist _____. Maybe you fill in the blank with e-book reader, or backpack, or laptop, or kitchen blender, or productivity system, or cell phone. Whatever it is, the point’s the same:
If we find ourselves trying to purchase the ideal minimalist life, we’re doing it wrong.
What we forget is that approximately 97.62% of the time we either already have one that’s worked and will continue to work just fine, or we don’t have one, and we’ve survived just fine without it all these years and will continue to survive just fine without it.
Don’t let minimalism become an excuse for gear-lust and new spending.
I have succumbed to this trap. I have spent embarrassing amounts of time online or day dreaming about gadgets, productivity systems, and items that would make my life more simple and focused. But if we spent as much time just doing Our Incredible Thing as we did online and dreaming about things that will make us do Our Incredible Thing better, we’d all be rock stars.
Before, we lusted after big, exciting, many, cheap, and shiny! Now, we lust after itsy, bitsy, few, bland, zen…and shiny!
But this is missing the point. The point isn’t changing your spending habits or seeking out your ultimate last purchase, it’s focusing so intently on what’s most important to you that you wind up neglecting all this incidental junk.
Our focus on finding the perfect minimalist wallet [pony] is holding us back from being excited about spending time with our children, or writing an incredible novel, or reading an incredible novel, or starting our own bakery, or traveling to Peru, or traveling to the local park, or loving the pony we already have.
Stop shopping on Amazon, reading reviews of simplification stuff, or lusting after other minimalists’ 100 things lists.
Go spend time with the pony you have.
] chloe [
