Often times, people assume that disaster preparedness means the ability to live without society. While this is one of the ways, it’s not all-encompassing. What if it’s a minor disaster? What if a tornado destroys your home, for example? You’d still need modern items. And one of the most important items to have in modern society are your documents.
Exciting, I know.
We live in a bureaucratic society. If we want to survive and thrive in it, we need to play by their rules. This means keeping an intelligent and organized record of all of your important documents. Is your birth certificate sitting in a box in your closet? All it takes is one flood. Now it’s ruined, along with yoru social security card. Now getting a new drivers license will be a much bigger struggle, especially since you were born 4 states away and it takes 2 to 3 weeks to ship you a new one.
Here we will cover two things: What kind of documents to keep and where to keep them.
Important Documents to Keep Track Of:
- Important Documents you may need include:
- Birth Certificates
- Marriage Certificates
- Death Certificates
- Wills, Powers-of-Attorney
- Military discharge papers
- Tax info
- Insurance info
- Scans of Driver License and Social Security Card
- Vehicle Title & Registration
- Passports
- Medical and Health Insurance records
- Copies of your high school diploma and college degrees
- Home and Property Deeds
Where to Keep Your Documents
Most people will keep these documents in a box, stored away. While that works, it’s not very safe. A fire, flood, or other disasters can ruin these items, making life harder. We can’t recommend this method.
Some folks will get a safety deposit box at their local bank. While we agree that this is one of the safest places to keep them, it comes with one major problem: it’s in a bank. If you want access to these items, you’re under the limitations of bank hours and regulations. If you need something immediately, this won’t do.
We recommend the second most common way to store documents: a home safe. There are personal safes that are water and fireproof, while still being light enough for travel. This means that no matter what happens to your home, your documents will be safe. Just don’t lose the key or forget the passcode. We’ve previously written about the different home safes and what we think works best.
This is the age of information, folks. Don’t lose what info you have.