I had my dad-less groceries hugged to my chest with one hand while my beat up old wallet dangled out of the other like an exhaust pipe when it completely fell apart. Literally. Stitching along one seam had started to unravel about a month ago and I kept saying to myself it’ll be fine. It wasn’t fine. Twenty three dollars, my debit card, and driver’s license flew across the pavement while I pursued a five dollar bill into the wheel well of a shopping cart. That wallet had cost me eleven dollars at a retailer two years prior. $11.
Rounded up to about $0.15 cents a day assuming you lost it somewhere around the two year mark, which was fine! Until you’re desperately patting a parking lot crouched down on your hands and knees.
That was the straw that broke me toward Saddleback Leather. And to be abundantly clear, I was fully intending to find the absolute cheapest saddleback wallet because I did not want to spend that kind of money on something that sits in your back pocket and gets farted on ten hours a day. The skinny front pocket model I ultimately purchased was easily over eighty dollars which felt like a six figure amount at the time because of how little they cost me to begin with. Mom had already given me the you spent how much on a coat? Look once earlier that year so I wasn’t about to subject her to freaking clothes shopping anytime soon.
The Math That Actually Changed My Mind
I love doing math to justify purchases. Doesn’t matter how irrational they are. Clothes, supplies, cars, shoes. I want to know what I spent per wear. Doesn’t get you very far with most of the jackets I’ve bought but holy crap does it apply to leather wallets.
Okay, so hear me out about wallets specifically. Better than anything else I talk about here. Wear isn’t really a term that applies, because sure you can wear your wallet, but you carry it. Every day, for years sometimes, until it’s either worn out or you lose it somewhere. Doesn’t wear like clothing, so cost per wear doesn’t work the way most of the examples I talk about here do. Instead it’s cost per day….and that’s when it becomes crazy.
I did this quick math on my phone while waiting in the Saddleback hardware counter line, literally. Which is convenient because I’ll show you exactly how my thought process works when I’m standing at a register wanting to buy something. So….$82 on the wallet and if it lasts me THREE years that’s $0.89 cents a day. Now, my Walmart wallet that cost me $11 lasted me TWO YEARS before giving up the ghost by ripping a seam. On paper that’s already cheaper than what I was about to spend.
Except it didn’t last two years. No wallet I ever owned does. Not really. That one lasted fifteen months before started looking stupid with curled corners and the one before that lasted ten. So really I’m buying a new wallet every year by never doing the math on something so trivial individually but expensive as shit when you actually keep track. Suddenly that $82 is pretty cheap.
I kid you not within seconds of figuring that out Saddleback’s whole marketing spiel popped into my head. KNOW WHAT REALLY pisses me off is I’m the kind of guy who buys 90% of his clothing secondhand so hearing marketing bullcrap is something I tune out daily. But their thing, the thing on their website that got me sucked in, was they brag about how it comes with a 100 year warranty. Then they have this bit about fighting over it in your grave.
I chuckled at that when I first saw it leaning against the counter three years ago. Now I’m just bitter I waited that long because the real cost per day on mine right now is sitting at $0.54 and gets smaller and smaller the more I use it and don’t have to replace it. THAT is what got me. Not the leather, not how damn cool of a story the brand has behind it, not the longevity perks. It was literally the math once I broke it out beyond one year, because let’s be honest that’s where all cheap purchases fall apart. Every single wallet I’ve ever owned.
Where It Actually Let Me Down, Because Something Always Does
I’m not going to lie to you and say when I first got mine it was THE best purchase I’ve ever made. Leather came stiff. Like so stiff the first three weeks out it actually didn’t fold naturally in my pocket and felt like a literal brick of wood. I almost returned it because I was so certain I just lost eighty two bucks proving a point to absolutely no one.
My friend Dez, who is also my coworker from job sites who has strong opinions about whether he’s asked about the resale value on literally anything I own, picked it off my toolbox one day and said it felt like carrying a hockey puck. Not wrong. It took about two months of actual wear, inserting cards, folding over itself, having it sit in my truck before it finally broke down and now sits the way a wallet should.
That’s something you never hear when people talk about this stuff. Full grain leather is an investment, but that investment comes with about eight weeks of your life you’ll never get back being pissed at how stiff it feels until it softens up. If you’re the type of person who needs to love something the minute you buy it, Saddleback will make you wait. It’s also fair to say that color isn’t as versatile as others.
The shade I chose,rich brown, develops a patina really fast. Gets darker and lighter in spots depending on where your hands naturally rest. Which, in my case, has left me with a lighter patch right where my thumb pulls my wallet out of my pocket.
Doesn’t look worn, it looks like I spilled something and didn’t tell anyone. Believe me, I didn’t. That’s just where my hand sits.
Three years after writing that review I can happily say I haven’t had a problem since. One wallet. Three years. And a cost per wear that mocks every other wallet I’ve ever owned daily. That right there is the success story. Sure the marketing Sucks and yeah that lifetime warranty is probably bullshit, but do you know what’s not bullshit? $0.07 cents for three years of reliable wallet.
Liam is a sparky from Birmingham who got into charity shopping during one very skint year and never really stopped. He works out the cost per wear on everything he buys, sometimes out loud, sometimes wrongly the first time.
