The staff of the Gene Grawe Fund doesn't want to get in the habit of recommending products. But, considering the amount of money our members, especially new members, waste searching for suitable gift card wallets, we thought we might at least pass along the following info from one of our members who thinks his family has found a near perfect gift card wallet for their GGF program.
My family had only been in the Gene Grawe Fund a little over a year and we were already on our fourth gift card wallet. We had wasted at least $60 searching for an ideal gift card wallet. Since six people use our GGF wallet and three of them are disabled, our requirements might be somewhat unique. We needed one wallet that would serve all our needs, especially those family members with hand strength, dexterity, and fine motor skill issues. However, I can think of no wallet feature that would help someone with a disability, but then hinder someone without a disability. So I would imagine what's good for us will be good for you.
Well, our family's search is over. We think we may have finally found the ultimate gift card wallet on Amazon.com. I bought one in late 2017, and so far the responses from everyone in our household have been very positive.
UPDATE JANUARY 2023: After five years using this wallet, everyone in the family is still very happy with it. And it's still in excellent condition! The zipper still works great. The pockets show no sign of wear or fatigue. All the stitching is intact. It doesn't even look worn. In fact, the wallet has been through more than five years of near daily use with no problems at all. Best $20 I ever spent. I just checked the listing on Amazon and seen that the price is now $20.98, and it's still rated at nearly 5 stars with 5,578 reviews. Well, you can't beat that! We love this wallet so much that I bought another blue one last summer just so we can have a spare.
Click here to see the listing on Amazon.com. We bought the Buvelife brand, but there are similar wallets sold by other brands. However, I can only speak about the Buvelife brand.
This Buvelife wallet is the size of your average clutch. When we're out, my dear wife graciously concedes to carrying it in her purse where it fits nicely. It's exterior is a leather-like material and it sports a heavy duty zipper to secure everything. The wallet is attractive, but is still plain looking enough for dad to carry into Home Depot.
The fanfold section has 12 rows and 3 columns resulting in 36 card pockets. Yet, it has a storage capacity of 36+ cards because you can put several cards in each pocket. We've put up to 4 cards in one pocket. It's great to be able to group cards together. I love that we can now store three or four of those $5 TCBY cards in one pocket. No other wallet style that we've seen can do that.
This fanfold-style of card storage makes it possible for those with hand strength and dexterity issues to slip the cards out of the pockets without using something like a scribe or a pocket knife tip to slide them out of the tight windows like our last wallet.
The Buvelife wallet has one pocket on each side of the fanfold that can hold farmer's market cash, a checkbook, and even a cellphone. The side pockets can also accommodate those odd-sized certificates like Butcher Block's and is even deep enough to store an unopened GGF Five Back Visa!
For those who feel it's important, this wallet has a lining that is RFID blocking. Probably not important for gift cards, but it's there to protect your credit card information from hi-tech thieves if you keep a backup credit card in your Gene Grawe Fund wallet like we do.
You can't have everything and this wallet is no different. It is missing a couple of nice-to-have features; neither of which is terribly important. First, there is no change pocket. But, to be honest, we never really made use of that feature on our other GGF wallets. So not a problem. Second, there's no elastic loop to store a Sharpie for writing balances on plastic gift cards. However, my family all agreed that is not a showstopper either. We just toss a Sharpie and a pen into one of the side pockets.
In 2017, I ordered our wallet in Navy Blue, but it now only comes in black or red.
What really impressed me was the number of 5-star reviews this wallet has on Amazon.com. Back in 2017, it was 4.9/5 stars with 188 reviews. In April 2024, it is rated at 4.6/5 stars with 5,667 reviews. When you read the reviews you can see that nearly everyone was very pleased with this wallet. I know we are.
I'm hoping this will be our last gift card wallet purchase for many years. This wallet sells for around $20 on Amazon.com, but I would have gladly paid more for it. It really is that good a quality.