The TGT Wallet Review

All About TGT ‘Tight’ Wallet

This wallet elicits quite a bit of nostalgia for me and that’s down to the simple fact that I sort of credit the TGT Wallet for kickstarting my obsession with men’s wallets, through which this website and my YouTube channel was born. Nostalgia aside, back in 2013 the TGT Wallet really was something that most people hadn’t come across before, hence TGT’s tagline of “a new kind of wallet”. A wallet that not only looked cool, but also was no larger than the credit cards it carried in the first place. Going back to the original Kickstarter campaign, I had fun searching through some of the early comments referring to the wallet as “refreshing” or “something they’d never seen before”. I loved it and used it off and on for at least the later half of the 2010s.

Look & Design: A new kind of wallet

The TGT Wallet has a simple design. Made from a combination of elastic and leather, the wallet is designed in a way to keep your everyday carry as slim and compact as possible. Elastic makes up the majority of the wallet’s material, sitting on the back portion of the wallet and wrapping around to connect to leather on the front. It’s incredibly simple but that’s what makes the wallet look and feel great. Having owned this wallet for over a decade, I have no issue in confidently telling you this wallet is in fantastic condition for its age.

The elastic on the back is honestly in scarily good condition. It hasn’t lost any of its elasticity, its edges aren’t fraying, nor has it accumulated any dirt or stains that couldn’t just be removed with a bit of light cleaning with water. Honestly, I’ve had wallets half the age of my TGT Wallet which are in far worse condition, which is testament to the quality and craftsmanship of the wallet.

The leather on the front is also faring very decently. It’s made from a fine lambskin leather, a leather that isn’t that common. Lambskin leather has some unique properties to it including its incredible smoothness, softness and luxurious appearance, all due to its fine fibres. But that does come at a cost. Lambskin leather is by no means as durable as full-grain leather or many other types on the market. So how is my TGT Wallet holding up?

Well honestly, incredibly well. You can see by the images that the leather is still in great condition. It hasn’t split, it hasn’t deteriorated and it hasn’t lost that smoothness that I talked about earlier. In my example, the leather has definitely aged, it has many creases and a more aged appearance to it from slight changes in its colouration and texture. One of the downsides of this leather, and that can be seen on my example, is the wallet doesn’t really develop what’s known as a leather patina.

There’s a fine line between a wallet that looks worn and one with a patina, and the TGT definitely falls under the worn look even though it’s had plenty of time to develop a patina. Its durability has lasted, but its looks have not. I guess after 10 years of owning this wallet, both me and the wallet are looking a little rough around the edges.

Overall, despite my qualms about how the leather ages on the TGT Wallet, I’m still incredibly happy with how well this wallet has lasted over the past decade. In terms of its usability, the wallet’s age hasn’t at all affected how this wallet works, and that’s testament to a great quality product, one that with a little care could easily last a lifetime. I think this comment on the original Kickstarter campaign from three years ago sums it up well: “Just thought I would say, that I am still using my wallet and it looks almost as good as the day I got it!!”

Functionality & Utility: Does less equal more?

As I mentioned earlier, the early 2010s was a wallet revolution spearheaded by the popularity of Kickstarter and crowdfunding in general. If I could pick one thing to define what was popular at the time, it was minimalism. Stripping back and deconstructing products and recreating them in a smaller, more meaningful way. You could easily take one look at the TGT Wallet and cast it aside. It doesn’t do enough, but remember each and every one of us is looking for something different, and what’s perfect for one person is another person’s nightmare.

In terms of the TGT Wallet, functionality has deliberately been kept to a minimum. Its smaller size, coming in at no larger than a standard credit/debit card, naturally limits what the wallet can do. The wallet is designed with two slots. A larger one at the back, made from elastic and designed for storage of your credit/debit cards, and a slightly smaller one at the front, made from leather, designed for carrying any bills or banknotes.

The elastic compartment designed for cards is open at each end, meaning you can access your cards from both sides and use your fingers to first push the cards upwards to gain leverage and fan through the cards you want. Simple and very effective. In terms of storage, I found the TGT Wallet could store anywhere from one to eight cards before functionality and size started becoming an issue. Let me explain.

These styles of wallets are what I commonly refer to as stacking wallets. Cards are stored stacked on top of each other, designed to maximise space. The downside to this is twofold. First, the more cards you carry, the bulkier the wallet gets. Sure, this wallet can theoretically store an endless amount of cards, but by sacrificing the wallet’s thickness.

The more cards you carry, the bulkier it gets. Secondly, card stacking wallets like the TGT suffer from an issue where cards can get very difficult to access when too many are stored. As more cards are stored, the elastic gets tighter and it can become difficult to pry the elastic away and easily find the card you need. Cards can get trapped in the middle of the stack and the wallet especially becomes difficult or clumsy to use.

So in my testing, I found eight cards to be the sweet spot before the issues mentioned above start to become a problem. Eight cards is still comfortable in the pocket, while still not being overly tight on the wallet, making access still a breeze. With any wallet like this, less is more. The fewer cards you carry, the easier it’ll be to find the card you need and access it quickly, and the thinner the wallet will be. My suggestion for you is to look at how many cards you carry and make sure it’s eight or under. If you carry more than eight cards, then most likely this wallet isn’t for you.

Finally, on to cash storage. The leather slot at the front is designed for cash storage with bills folded up into a small rectangle and slotted in. The TGT Wallet can store a decent amount of notes, maybe six or seven before the slot gets too full and the wallet too bulky. My main problem with this slot is it’s very small, and when you’re storing lots of bills it becomes an absolute pain when trying to get them back in the slot.

Remember, notes are all folded up together. So first you have to take the entire wad out, then find the notes you want, then fold them back up and then attempt to put that entire stack back in a slot no larger than a few inches in diameter. It really falls short here, and when you’re quickly paying for something, the last thing you want to be doing is fiddling about trying to cram folded notes back in a slot. It’s fiddly and clumsy to use. Now, this isn’t much of an issue if you’re only carrying say one or two bills. But this quickly changes with four or more.

Final Verdict: Is the TGT Wallet Worth It?

It’s been a fun experience reusing the TGT Wallet after all this time. For me, the wallet is still an amazing little piece of design and innovation and I really do credit it with being one of the first minimalist wallets on the market to gain such notoriety and helping influence the industry as a whole. That being said, much of my love for this wallet is nostalgia-based, and using a clear head and giving my objective opinion, the wallet does have issues I can’t get over, mainly that whole cash storage issue. We must also mention a lot has changed in the past decade and a half, and minimalist wallets are now plentiful with many having far more features than the TGT itself.

So do I recommend this wallet? I’m not sure. It currently comes in at a price tag of $54.00 which for me is a little steep for what you get. If it was closer to the $30.00 to $35.00 mark then I’d say absolutely, what have you got to lose? But at its current price, it pains me to say there’s plenty of alternatives on the market that both undercut it while providing the same if not better level of functionality. All in all, I like the wallet, but with so much choice it’s hard to justify unless you’ve fallen in love with its design. For more information on the TGT, visit their official website by clicking the link below.