Hi! My name is Kim Stone and the following paragraphs will tell you a little bit about me and why I started WalletSurfer.com.
About 5 years ago, I retired from the University of Arizona after 25 years as a horticulturist and arborist for a botanical garden. When I wasn’t dodging cactus spines and heat stroke, I doubled up as a writer, editor, and IT manager.
For me, “retirement” is more of technical term than a state of mind. I continue to do everything I’ve always done, including Crossfit, riding a mountain bike, running, swimming, and hiking. I’m one of those people who can’t sit still.
I still like to write, too. So once I was free of the shackles of the 9-5 grind, I started a blog.
My first blog wasn’t about wallets, but about online security. I soon realized that there were too many other experts out there that knew WAY more than me about the subject.
So, as they say in the blogging world, I pivoted.
Why I started WalletSurfer.com
Until three or four years ago, I carried a ratty black leather wallet that someone gave me during the Clinton administration. It was a typical trifold wallet with a place for cash, slots for half a dozen credit cards, and a transparent window where I kept an old faded photo of my kids.
It was thick, brutish, and usually full of receipts that were 2 or 3 months old. I trudged along with an unbecoming lump in my front pocket that gradually created a permanent white outline in the blue denim of every pair of my Levis.
I bet you can relate to this, right?
I had heard of the new generation of innovative wallets, but only tangentially, the same way I caught wind about smart thermostats and doorbell cameras.
An epiphany at the Home Depot…
Then, out of the blue, I saw a guy making a return at a Home Depot.
He was trying to find the credit card he used for his original purchase and had spread 6 or 7 cards out on the counter. When he was done, he straightened them up into a neat stack and placed them inside the tiniest wallet I had ever seen.
It was a forehead-slapping moment. I had no idea such a thing existed. When I got home, I did some wallet research.
It didn’t take long for me to determine that his wallet was probably a Ridge cardholder or one of its dozen knock offs.
As I dug deeper, I discovered there were minimalist wallets, trackable wallets, and wallets with RFID protection. Some wallets ejected your cards or sent an alert to your phone if you left your wallet behind.
Oddly, there weren’t many websites that had all of the information that I was looking for about these newfangled kinds of wallets. There were few “one-stop shops” that reviewed the kinds of wallets that I was interested in, At least not in the detail I was looking for.
So I decided to do it myself with WalletSurfer.com
Yes, I’ve become a wallet fanatic
Since mid-2019, I have become a full-time wallet surfer. I read every wallet-related blog I can find, watch hundreds of Youtube videos, communicate with manufacturers, and study the technology that makes these wallets tick.
For individual reviews and comparative posts, I carry each wallet in pocket for several weeks or more.
As of this writing, I have over 150 wallets, wallet tools, MagSafe accessories, and tracking cards that are vying for the limited space in my office. Sometimes manufacturers send me these wallets and sometimes I buy them.
But I still treat them all with the same objectivity when I review them.
After all, if I write a particularly critical review about a certain wallet, the worst that can happen is that a manufacturer won’t send me any more. Boohoo. They can’t all be winners.
Does this make me a wallet expert? Well, after 4 years of evaluating well over 100 wallets and wallet accessories, I can safely say, YES.
My goal at WalletSurfer.com
As I say on the home page of WalletSurfer.com, my goal is to help you learn about wallets.
After all, there are 8 billion people on the planet, which means 5 or 6 billion people carry some sort of wallet. That’s a lot of people who can benefit from solid information to make a buying decision.
I write posts that address the kinds of questions you are asking. For every post, I do my homework and research the heck out of each wallet I review.
Besides writing, I’ve also made hundreds of videos on my social channels for those of you who prefer the visual medium. You can catch some of them here. Check them out here.
WalletSurfer.com is my full-time gig. That means I spend every day helping you learn about groovy wallets. As I learn more, you learn more. We’re all in this together.
Please feel free to contact me anytime. I’d love to hear from you.
