Aluma Wallet : The Mother Of All Reviews – Should You Buy The Aluma Wallet?

The Aluma Wallet , while simple in appearance is actually an absolute protector from the Gods. Well, we might not need to get that dramatic, but the wallet truly is something special. The Aluma wallet was specifically designed to protect and assist a variety of people in a variety of circumstances throughout their daily life.  If you always find yourself cursing the heavens because you accidentally sent your wallet through the washer and dryer again, potentially destroying receipts, or destroying your money thanks to the spin cycle, the Aluma wallet can help you. If you are used to just jamming that fiver in to the bill fold all willy-nilly amongst the ten dollars in ones and assortment of receipts that are also jammed in there, the Aluma wallet can lend you some assistance. If you rely on RFID chips in your credit cards or on identification cards, the Aluma wallet can absolutely help you out. If you are the later, it might even save your identity one day.

I fell in to a few of those above categories along with the vast majority of people I worked with. I have a strong feeling that if you’re still here reading on about the waterproof and indestructible die-cast Aluma wallet, you probably identify with one of those categories as well; great! The Aluma wallet As Seen On TV offers a product with quite a few features that were sadly absent on the wallet your grandmother gave you years ago for your birthday. Some of the wallet’s boasting points are:

• Waterproof – keep your valuables safe and dry!
• Made of die-cast aluminum – Nearly indestructible!
• Protects your RFID/Credit cards – Your personal information shouldn’t be broadcasted to the world.
• Slim and compact size – Fits easily in your pocket.

I have been horrible with keeping my past wallets and the contents of those wallets in good shape. I know I’m not alone in this fault, so after going through many, many wallets and finally trying out the Aluma wallet, I wanted to share my thoughts on feelings on the overall experience. I don’t think of myself as anything but your average Joe, so I hope my Aluma Wallet review and insight on the product can answer some of your questions and help advise you if you too should be buy the Aluma wallet like I did.

I have been working in construction for just about 20 years. On a typical day I usually have a couple credit cards, my driver’s license, my company ID, a few bills, and several receipts stuffed in to the various nooks and crannies of my wallet. This makes anything extremely hard to find, but I’m a man and that’s how we work. Now, working on construction sites five or six days a week, constantly getting in and out of a truck and being tossed around quite a bit is bound to take its toll on most wallets, and it did. I constantly had to go down to the DMV to get my IDs replaced. I have sat on hold listening to hours of soulless music just so I could talk to someone half the way around the world and request that they send me a new credit card. All of this nonsense was accentuated by the fact that I was also out shopping for new wallets every three months or so.

I have definitely gone through the gamut over the years. I have tried money clips, single fold and double fold wallets. Each and every one would all start out pretty good. The worse thing that can happen when you’ve got a new wallet is to let a business card slip in to one of the fold areas giving it a nice permanent crease. Then the degradation would rear its ugly head. It wasn’t until about a month later when the traditional leather wallets I bought would start to break in. This was great in the fact that it folded closed nice and easily as well as would take up less room in my back pocket. This was great because it also meant that just about everything in my wallet would begin to develop a slight bend to their shapes. This always starts out small and unnoticeable, just worsening over time and wallet use; mainly from me sitting on them. This was actually not that great of a feature.

I quickly got sick of constantly transforming my credit cards in to un-swipeable and useless pieces of bent plastic that I would continue to lug around until I was sitting at cash register on the phone with their customer service while I pleaded with them to allow the un-swiped charge to be authorized and send me another new card. I would later get the card in the mail, go buy yet another new wallet and set start to the cycle again.

Well this time I didn’t want to set down that road anymore. The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I liked to think of myself as fairly sane, at least in the areas I can control. I had heard a few of the guys that I work with mention them using aluminum wallets that were for the most part indestructible. So I began doing some research on indestructible, aluminum wallets. I saw the Aluma wallet ad on TV, and researched  Aluma Wallet reviews online and read through their sales pitch. It certainly looked like it would be up for the task of becoming my new wallet. So I bought it!

I had reordered all of my credit cards, gone down to the DMV to get a new driver’s license, and even bugged my boss for a new work ID card. If ever there was a man ready for a new wallet, I was that man. It took a few days but it finally came in the mail. The package was extremely straight forward, just a cardboard box with the Aluma wallet and some instructions to walk me through the complex process of putting my stuff in to it. A few seconds later the deed was done. I snapped the wallet closed, shoved it in my pocket and set about back to my regular schedule.

I will be the first to admit that it took a bit of time to get used to the new, more rigid shape of the wallet. It was true that the Aluma wallet was not too large, it had nice and compact feel to it. It didn’t feel overly bulky when I walked around with it, at all. If I could rewind to before I had deeply engrained my habitual placement of my wallet in my back pocket, I could have probably simply shifted my preferences to keeping it in my front pocket. That was nothing but a hopeless pipedream. No matter, in about a week’s time the Aluma wallet had become just another wallet. This really wasn’t “just another wallet,” however.

Aluma Wallet

After using the Aluma wallet for a month and a half I noticed something. I noticed that I actually hadn’t noticed anything about this wallet, which was actually a good thing. I opened it up and begun thumbing through the transparent pages, examining the things I deemed valuable enough to carry around with me wherever I go. There were no signs of excessive wear on my credit cards or IDs. Though to be honest, a month and a half really isn’t that special, so I made a mental note, threw the wallet back in to my pocket and went about my business.

Work had been picking up lately and I was extremely busy running around to various job sites. I had all but forgotten about the skepticism and scrutiny I was planning to behest upon this wallet. Getting completely caught up life, I went on working and using the wallet as usual. That was until about six months ago. I had promised a worksite lunch one day, but I we were so busy I didn’t dare leave to go pick up the food in fear we might start slipping even slightly behind schedule. I arranged to have one of the other workers on the job site that day go off and get the food.

I am reimbursed for work related purchases made with the company card. So in what would become the first real world tests, I nonchalantly tossed my Aluma wallet to him to use. Apparently I wasn’t paying at all paying attention to my trajectory but, I was completely off. The wallet made a nice arc and landed straight in a wash bucket that was sitting out, a great shot if I was aiming for it. The fact that I wasn’t aiming for it is not what made my gut drop slightly. It was the hundreds of dollars in reimbursement receipts I had in there and had yet to turn in yet. There was no way I would be reimbursed if those receipts were ruined from their soak in the water bucket. What a silly mistake to lose so much money over.

Impulse made me immediately drop what I was doing, run over to the bucket and fish out my wallet. I gave it a shake or two and popped it open, fully expecting to see everything inside soggy and floating in water. You can’t even begin to imagine the relief I felt when I saw that everything was just as it should be.  My cheap Aluma wallet saved me roughly five hundred dollars that day. If I would have been sporting one of my usual leather wallets, I figure things would have turned out much differently.

The Aluma wallet I had purchased continued on as my exclusive credit card protection. It continued saving me the inconvenience of having to replace IDs and credit cards. I would continue to have little mishaps like the bucket incident which would remind me that deciding to buy this wallet was a smart move on my part.

It’s now been about a year and a half since I first bought my Aluma wallet and I honestly couldn’t be happier. The casing does have a few battle scars, primarily from negligence on my part. Bouncing it off the pavement, or dropping it off of a roof will definitely leave a mark. Scuffs aside, the Aluma wallet has absolutely outshined the leather wallets I would normally use. It has far exceeded my expectations, literally saving me both time and money in the year and a half that I’ve been using it. I’ve made recommendations to several people I work with to buy one. There really is no reason to continue packing around an old and tattered ID. Normal wear and tear is bound to happen, your wallet should be preventing that, not be the reason it is happening.

What you get

When your Aluma wallet comes in the mail, the package is pretty straight forward. You will open it up and find your wallet. I took advantage of a buy one get one free offer so there were two in my box. They both were in little plastic bags which you’ll need to remove them from. There was also a little piece of paper with the very obvious instructions of how to place a credit card in your new wallet. I’m sure glad they included that because I have no idea how I would have figured out how to manage without it.

How it works

I’m of course joking about the complexity of actually using the wallet. It is extremely easy. By simply depressing the small button on the front, the wallet will pop open. Once open, the wallet will flip like a book. Each of the pages allow you to stuff a credit card, an ID card, a picture, money…etc. in to it for safe keeping. It’s also very simple to store a spare key or something similar in the Aluma wallet. Once you’ve placed your new edition, or removed the item from the wallet, it simply snaps closed; you can’t get much easier than that.

QA

Q. What are the dimensions of the wallet?

A. The Alumawallet is very compact for the amount of stuff you can put in it. It is roughly three and a half inches long by two and a half inches wide, and a half an inch thick. It can comfortably fit your IDs, credit cards, cash, spare key, receipts, to do lists, and more.

Q. What is the Aluma wallet made out of?

A. As its name hints at, the Aluma wallet is made out of Die-Cast aluminum alloy. The process of aluminum die-casting produces a very ridged and strong finished product.  If you are concerned with the Aluma wallet breaking, don’t be. It’s been designed and manufactured specifically for protecting whatever its contents may be.

Q. Is it waterproof?

A. The Aluma wallet is 100% waterproof. Its aluminum case ensures that no water will be soaking through. The joints come together and make a water tight seal thanks to rubber contact points placed all around the wallet. This is sure to save many from putting their wallet through a run in the washer and dryer after forgetting to check their pockets. You might even send it through the wash now just because you can.

Q. Can both men and women use the Aluma wallet?

A. Yes, the Aluma wallet was specifically designed to be a unisex product. It is small and sleek enough that men are not bothered carrying one around. It is also large enough that women commonly find it useful to keep their essentials in. This makes for quick retrieval from a purse.

Q. Does it help you organize your wallet?

A. Absolutely. The inside of the Aluma wallet looks much like a CD case. There are a number of pages which you can easily slide your identification, credit cards, or money in to. Because the pages are see through, you can easily create a small wallet sized photo album by just putting some of your favorite pictures in to the provided sleeves. When the case is closed, the contents of the sleeves cannot fall out. Everything will be right where you left it the next time you open it up. Things are not getting mixed up by being jostled around and you are not cramming every new receipt and business card in to the same wallet slot. Everything will be nice and organized, and protected too.

Q. Are the wallets ugly?

A. I guess this comes down to personal taste, but overall, I would say no. I find the Aluma wallets to be pretty sharp looking.  I opted to go for the straight aluminum look, but if that’s too bland for your taste there is also red and blue available. Either one of those colors might have made things a bit more interesting. There are many colors you can choose from, so finding an Aluma wallet that matches your personality should be fairly easy. No matter the color, they all protect your stuff the same.

Q. Do Aluma Wallets protect against RFID theft?

A. This is a great question. First of all, for those that may not know, RFID is radio-frequency identification. This technology allows a reader and an electronic tag to exchange data; a great innovation in modern science. There are many companies that use RFID technology to communicate with electronic door locks and have also been used with credit cards for quick no swipe paying at cash registers and toll booths. While this does create a lot of convenience, it also creates quite a bit of personal risk. RFID is still a fairly new technology and encryption is either non-existent or very weak on most cards these days. There is also no on and off switch, meaning your data is constantly being transmitted out to any device that can read it; friendly or not. If someone with malintentions gets ahold of an RFID reader, they can easily gain access to your sensitive information simply by being near you.

The Aluma wallet is made from aluminum. Every time you snap your wallet closed, the entireties of its contents are encased in an aluminum shell. This metal encasing prevents the radio waves to penetrate its walls and become publicly broadcasted information. While I don’t have any RFID broadcasting cards, I wasn’t able to directly test this question. I did put in a fair bit of research time scouring for the answer. I found many websites and people claiming that it does in fact block RFID transmission, I wasn’t able to find any official testing results from Aluma directly.

I originally purchased this wallet expecting it to perform on par with the cheap leather wallets I was traditionally used to buying. That’s obviously not a great testament to the faith I had what I was buying. Skepticism has been a very fickle friend of mine for years. After receiving my Aluma wallet in the mail my skepticism began to fade. It was performing exactly as it said it would and has continued to do so for just about a year and a half now. I am completely satisfied with my purchase and really should have bought the aluminum wallet a long time ago.

What is most remarkable about the Aluma wallet is that it is so truly unremarkable. This wallet isn’t going to change the course of history and I will debate strongly that sliced bread is still indeed better. I follow that with a big huge resounding but. But, the Aluma wallet absolutely performs and behaves exactly as it says it will. I have no fear of putting important all of my most important items I have to carry around with me day in and day out securely in its bowels. I have personally used this wallet and unintentionally put it through the ringer for over a year. I have seen in action, protecting my credit cards so that I may swipe them again, another day. The Aluma wallet is fantastic, and highly recommended by me.  My Aluma aluminum wallet is the silent aluminum soldier protecting my personal goods, and I definitely think you’re crazy if it isn’t yours as well.