Pages

14 April 2011

Mini as a Wallet

You might recall that I actually put my Mini Finchley in to use as a Wallet/Filofax during my recent visit to UK.

At the end of my UK visit I swapped my cards etc back to my Pocket Filofax, gosh what a change, the Pocket just seems so big!

The Finchley worked well as a wallet I was able to tuck it in my back pocket easily. The mesh pocket worked well for coins. My UK paper driving licence tucked in to the full width pocket along with bank notes. 

At the moment my Mini just has a Week Per Page diary insert which is the minimum size you can get and I think most people with slightly busy lives would find this format slightly restrictive. So I decided to take a more detailed look at the other diary formats available from Filofax for this size.

So there is a Week on Two Pages, what I like about this format was that it has equal spacing for each day. It is also all in English so there isn't wasted space for other languages. 


There is also a cotton cream variety, which is multi language format.


This Week on one page with notes format might also appeal to some people as well. This is also multi-language format. I would use the notes section for to-do lists and shopping lists etc.


In UK WH Smiths the news agents also sell their own brand of inserts including diaries which are slightly cheaper than Filofax own products these are only in English, the paper quality from what I can see is no better, then again no worse than the thin Filofax thin paper.

Although the Finchley Mini only has effectively two credit card slots, although the size of the mini means that you can have more than one card in each slot and overlap them in the middle so you can see four cards quite easily as shown here.





If I can get out of the need to carry my passport or just carry it separately. I could swap my Pocket for the Mini over here in France. Could this be a way of justifying a Mini Malden... hmm now there's a thought!

5 comments:

  1. Hi Steve,

    I'm in the market for a new wallet and have been considering a mini for this. Trouble is, I've got mroe than 4 cards, and I can't seem to find if there is some form of credit card holder insert like there is for the pocket size. Are you aware of one?

    Regards,

    Pete Mac in Aus

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've been using a Kendal Mini as my wallet for the last 3 months and loving it. I've managed to my four most used bank cards in the front pockets and still have space for more and bus/train tickets etc. The back zipper I use for my Tesco clubcard and Coop cards and I've still got the outside back pocket free.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've been using a NOS mini Portland the last couple of months for a jacket-pocket wallet. I'm coming from a card holder/money clip which, over the years, had become horribly deformed from carrying too many cards and receipts. For some reason, the Portland is half the thickness of other Mini's I've seen in the current lineup, and the only one that easily fits into my jacket pocket - barring the Guildford, I think.

    As I don't have credit cards, the Portland has forced me, with pleasure, to minimize what I carry. The left side is a full-length vertical pocket which carries 2 work ID's (I can wave the Portland at the sensor without opening). The right side card holders carry, from bottom up, NYC Metrocard, debit card and driver's license, with health insurance card right behind it. The right hand side vertical carries a few business cards. Cash is in the billfold (I seem to carry less and less as more of the world allows a swipe), coins in my pocket. At roughly the same time, I scored a NOS "barley" pen for the pen loop, as most uncapped pens are either too long to fit the length of the Mini (or fit too skinny in the hand).

    So far, my only inserts have been only blank notepaper, with a yearly planner for the odd moment when I have to reference a date. I don't think I could fit what I write into the Mini-size diary formats. Carrying the Portland, for me, has opened up an entire pants pocket - since I used to carry a wallet in addition to notebook and pen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That Wo1P with Notes looks like an appalling waste of space! With all those languages, you'd be lucky to fit five handwritten words into each day!

    ReplyDelete