Should You Keep a Bread Clip in Your Wallet? Fact-Checking Viral Ads

Bread clips do so much for us. They already help keep the plastic bags that hold our store bought bread sealed tight, keeping the dough soft and free from pests and mold until we can use it. And, in a pinch, these clips can also be used for other things — like wire organizers and impromptu cat toys. But, according to a viral ad that has appeared in many articles over the years, bread tabs can also do so much more than that.

Spoiler alert: The ad isn't exactly what it seems.

Keep reading as I investigate the article in question to determine whether or not you should tuck a bread clip in your wallet the next time you're traveling, and what the reasoning is behind the enduring claim.

The viral ad claims that people should be holding onto those plastic bread clips used to close plastic bread bags — for clarity's sake, I want to explain that these are the flat plastic ones and not the wire ones that you twist closed — because they can supposedly help you in a pinch while you're traveling.

According to Snopes, which has done extensive research on the article and the questions raised on social media about it, there were several variations of the ad that seemed to say that a bread clip was a worthy travel companion for dozens of reasons.

One such ad seemed to hint that there were travel perks that included making your plane ride and hotel stay more enjoyable, while another hinted at nearly 100 reasons that would be spelled out in a 90 slide article.

But the claims didn't stop there. One ad even offered up a 251 slide story about all of the uses for a bread clip, but instead only made one reference to its use, according to a Reddit post from 2023 posted in the aptly named Saved You a Click subreddit.

Each ad that was investigated by Snopes and the post from Reddit, despite claiming to have several uses for the discarded clip, seemed to resort back to the same single use for the fastener, which involved using it to repair a broken flip-flop while you're away from home.

The directions indicated that you could use the clip as a way to keep the thong part of your flip-flop secured to the foam part in the event the plastic snapped while you were away from home.

Unfortunately for any jetsetters who fell for the ad, Snopes came to the conclusion that the flip-flop hack was a dubious solution for that particular problem.

While there's probably no real harm in upcycling your old bread clip into a quick-fix should your sandals break while you're abroad, the real solution for this particular problem is probably to spring for a more durable pair of footwear before hitting the road in the first place.

In the end, this travel myth seems to be about as busted as the flip-flops it claims to help, which is to say not a very good use of your time.