The Right Amount of Cards, Cash and ID to Carry in Your Wallet

As phones take on more of the work of wallets, people are rethinking how much they still need to carry in cash, cards and identification.

Four in 10 Americans say none of their purchases in a typical week are paid for using cash, according to a 2022 survey from the Pew Research Center. That is up from 29% in 2018 and 24% in 2015, reflecting a trend accelerated by the pandemic. Plastic is getting displaced, too: 59% of Americans said they increased their use of digital payment methods last year, according to Mastercard’s Payment Index.