Forgot Your Purse at Home: Tip-of-the-Day #347

My “purse” is my phone and when I forget it, I leave behind my primary source of communication along with my entire wallet  because I use a smartphone “wallet” that adheres to the back of my phone and holds everything from my two most-used credit cards, my ATM card, my driver’s license, health insurance card, and more!

On the days I leave my house at the crack of dawn and am not firing on all cylinders, I’ve been known to leave this vital accessory behind. Here are a few tips on how to survive when that happens. 

1. Turn on iMessage when you get to work (assuming you have a Mac and an iPhone) so that you can still receive your text messages.
   
2. Tap into your LastPass account (OMG if you don’t have LastPass, get on that asap!) to pay for any online purchases that crop up during the day. LastPass stores all of your passwords but it also stores credit card information.
   
3. Add your credit card to your favorite pharmacy profile, in my case Walgreens, so that prescriptions can be paid for online and even in-store purchases like toilet paper, toothpaste, etc. can be added and charged to your stored card.
   
4. Order anything from gifts, gift cards, makeup and household essentials from Target online and pick it up from your local store. Mine is a few blocks from my office and it’s been known to save my you-know-what.
   
5. Order lunch through a restaurant that accepts online payments. I work downtown San Francisco and most of the neighboring restaurants have online ordering and accept credit cards online (again, all stored in LastPass).
   
6. If you’re really worried about missed phone calls (I’m not, but you may be) you can login to your wireless carrier online and check voicemail remotely.
   
7. Login to PayPal (Venmo no longer supports this via Web browser) to pay any after-work appointments that would have otherwise been paid with a credit card. For instance, pre-pay your hairdresser, esthetician, masseuse, etc. so you don’t show up without a form of payment!
   
8. If you REALLLY need cash, you can get it in small amounts from your bank of record. I popped into my bank (Wells Fargo) and informed them of my predicament and asked if I could withdraw $150 without identification or my ATM card. The answer was YES! As long as you can identify yourself and you know your ATM PIN number, you’re golden.

All by way of saying, there’s never need to panic if you happen to leave your phone and all of your credit cards and identifying information at home. There’s always a work around. Who runs the world? ;)