Purseless.

Dr. Helen experiments with liberating herself from purses and asks how wallet-users manage (especially when hampered by women’s clothes with useless pockets or none).  An interesting thread to read.  Dr. Helen says she feels dependent on a purse:

I decided to try carrying just a wallet… and see if it was worth punting the purse for a freer lifestyle. I thought …I could at least steal some guy traits that might make my life a bit simpler, and that included carrying a wallet. Men seem calmer than women, and maybe not having to keep up with a purse 24/7 is part of the reason.

How has it worked out? It’s hard! The first day I carried just a wallet, I kept looking for my purse and feeling that I had forgotten something. By the third day, I was over this but I didn’t have all of the things I needed such as various keys, my chapstick, stamps, my address book, my pepper spray, various food, gloves — and carrying spare change in my pocket drives me crazy. It jingles and falls out when you sit down. Is this normal? Are there some tricks of the trade that I do not understand here?

I have mostly carried a man’s wallet (that’s to say, one that fits in a pants pocket) for years now.  I say "mostly" because I do own several purses in various sizes.  They are hanging in my mud room and they are empty.  I guess you could say that I have purses, but they don’t have me.  Sometimes I use them, but I am not dependent on them. 

My wallet has always contained 1) 2 credit cards 2) folding money 3) ID 4) a few other useful cards, like library card, insurance card, etc. 5) a teeny-tiny little prayer book and a "Braille" rosary stamped into a card 6) a few stamps.   I try not to let it get stuffed too full of things, and a lot of my cards live at home in a drawer.  I don’t carry a checkbook around.  I don’t pay for things in cash unless I have to, and then I try to spend my change, leave change behind on top of the tip, or drop it in the barista’s tip jar, or whatever.  I just don’t like carrying change around.  There’s a lot of it swimming around in my car.  Really, if you need stuff, how hard is it to get back to your car?

I keep my keys (just car and house — extra keys stay at home unless I specifically need them) on a lanyard.  If I need my hands free and don’t have a place to stow them on my person, I hang the lanyard around my neck.

I hardly ever wear makeup, and if I did, I’d be wearing something minimalist that required little or no touch-up.  I carry lip balm and little tubes of lotion in the winter, but then I’ve always got coat pockets to put them in.   Sometimes I carry a camera, but I like little-bitty ones (and the next time I have to get a new cell phone, I plan to eliminate the need for a separate camera).

Oh, and I refuse to carry stuff for the kids.  They each have their own backpack and if they want to take toys or candy or money, they have to tote it themselves.

So why have purses at all?  Having them hanging empty in my mudroom is part of the minimalist plan!  If I happen to be going out and my clothes don’t have any pockets and I’m not wearing a coat (which would have pockets) and I’m not carrying a diaper bag or tote bag or gym bag or day pack, I  know I can quickly grab an appropriate purse or bag off the hooks in the mudroom; throw my wallet, keys and phone into it; and go.  I don’t keep one purse perpetually stuffed with everything I might possibly need.  I do take what I need when I need it.

Recently I have been experimenting with a larger wallet that doesn’t fit in many pants pockets but does fit in most of my coat pockets.  There are two reasons for this.  (1) I find that I haven’t been carrying it in my pants pocket anyway, because I don’t really like the uncomfortable bulge from a wallet in a hip or back pocket.  (2) My new larger wallet has a tiny zip pouch, in which I can carry an Imitrex tablet in case I have a migraine and can’t get to the tablet I keep in my car.