Thin out your George Costanza Wallet with Just One Club Card

I previously wrote today about my George Costanza wallet, which was replaced with a Men's Digital Photo Wallet from Brookstone. Even with my new gadgety wallet, I still had to do some pruning of various club cards to reduce the thickness of wallet. For instance, I took out my Mohegan Sun casino club card, Foxwoods, Viper Club of America card, Stop & Shop card, and various other cards.

Well, today, I happened to come across a website called Just One Club Card, which lets you combine your various club cards into a single small sheet of paper, thus saving you from having an overstuffed fat wallet or a backache/buttache from sitting on a fat wallet.

You simply enter in your club card account numbers online and it will generate the barcode images on the web page in a small condensed format that you can stick in your wallet. You can then print it out. Here's a sample one I created with some fictitious account numbers:

According to the website, you simply cut out the card along the dotted lines (except the middle line). Then fold together to get a two sided card. Use some clear tape to hold the card together or laminate if you want a really nice card that is also more durable.

You're probably wondering how the store barcode reader will know which barcode to read. Good question.

The simple solution is to cover all the barcodes but the store you're at with your fingers. That assumes of course that the cashier allows you to start waving your motley of printed barcodes over his/her scanner with your fingers obscuring the unimportant barcodes. A better solution is to print this Just One Club Card windowed-sleeve cutout (PDF), cut it out, and construct a sliding, windowed sleeve for your new just one club card. You still might get a few looks from cashiers when you hand this to them, but from users' feedback I've seen, no store has turned it down.

So far he has a database of over 120 club cards, including, A&P, Stop & Shop, Costco, BJs, BigY, Borders, CVS, Shaws, and more. Of course, an even better method would be to store your barcodes on your mobile phone and have them scan your mobile phone's display. It's already being discussed by the International Air Transport Association, which represents 94% of scheduled international travel on 240 airlines, and which has agreed to a global standard for mobile barcodes that can replace physical boarding passes.

Instead of a slip of paper, a barcode image is sent to your mobile phone, which can be scanned. Continental Airlines in Houston already has this running as part of a pilot program. They're the first airlines to offer cellphone boarding passes using barcodes. Here's a photo of it in action: