1. File a police report with the local PD. They probably won’t find your wallet, but it can’t hurt, and it’s good to do it for credit agency purposes.
2. Call and cancel all of your credit/check/ATM cards.
3. File a fraud security claim with the credit reporting agencies. Equifax, one of the big three, will forward your claim automatically to the other two and provide you with a free copy of your credit report as they have it.
4. Procure your birth certificate, or a certified copy of it. If you don’t have one readily available to you via a family member, VitalChek is one company who is well-known for doing this.
5. If you had a school ID, get it again. It should be one of the easiest ID cards to get back, as most universities now use an ID separate from your SSN, and so should have an easily-recognizable pictoral record of you on file for visual proof. It’s also much easier to complete the next step with one.
6. If you lost your Social Security card, fill out an application for a replacement. Go to socialsecurity.gov for the application and more information. Your birth certificate won’t work here, but a school ID will. If you don’t have a school ID, your passport or life insurance policy, among other things, will work. The social security agency will give you a stamped note stating that your SSN belongs to you; this should work in lieu of the card, which won’t arrive for a week at least. By the way, social security’s fraud division will not file a fraud claim unless you show someone is actively trying to steal your identity, so be on the lookout for a while to come.
7. Now that you have that back, get your driver’s license. The birth certificate / social security notification combination should be sufficient for just about every state and situation you could be in.
8. Use the newly acquired license to invalidate and replace all of your other items: membership cards, library cards, voter registration cards, etc.
9. If you lost any checks as well, call the bank and invalidate them all immediately, and place stops on anything purchased since the time that you lost your wallet. The quicker you do it, the less you’re liable for. If you’re really concerned, you can just close out the account and start over fresh, although that will take a little extra time and money.
10. Oh, and buy a new wallet.

One guess as to why this journal entry came about. Another guess as to how my past week has been.