OT: Cleaning & Sorting Out Life
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| Tue, 01-18-2005 - 1:02pm |
A few months ago while DH was trying to contact a friend of his because the guy’s cell phone wasn’t working, he “googled” him to try and find his home number, and to our amazement what he found instead was his obituary! It seems he had passed away suddenly in his sleep and in the wife’s despair she’d never contacted my DH.
Anyway, he was so young and he left behind his wife and daughter in shock and grief. For some reason (I don’t know maybe I’m looney) when my shock wore off all I could think about for days (and sometimes it would keep me awake all night) was, what if that had happened to me. What would I do if DH were suddenly gone? Would I know where the house insurance papers are, and what is the number to his human resource office, and what about life insurance? Maybe it’s a woman thing maybe it’s a “me” thing, I don’t know? But I obsessed about getting our “life” together so if Lord forbids something happened to DH in my state of grief I wouldn’t have to worry about whom our home ins. is through or how to go about contacting the right people, etc.. DH thought I was being silly for a while but I managed to convince him that it was important for me to have “things” in place and in one location because it would make me feel more in control and secure.
So I set about in this New Year to go through all our boxes of old bills, papers, etc. and get things all put together the most important in a fire/lock box and the others categorized in to a binder. All the old bills (there are about 6 and a half years worth of receipts and old bills the DH has kept, I don’t know why everything is pretty much on the computer) shredded and sorted.
So I’m pretty proud of myself. This past weekend I managed to sort through a lot of boxes in our computer room that were in our closet. And I managed to dig up and find his birth certificates, my passport, our closing papers on the home, and a bunch of other stuff I want organized and put into my special box. I also managed to shred 5 bags (YES 5!!!) of the kitchen tall bags of old bills and receipts we no longer needed to keep. I still have about another 5 bags left of shredding to do at the least but it was refreshing to get rid of old junk and sort ourselves into order.
Hopefully in the next couple of months I’ll have that all set up and can then take on a new project :), until then it looks like a lot more shredding for me, But it will all be worth it in a time of emergency.
Anyone else have a fire safe/lock box with important info? What do you have in yours? I’d like to see if there’s anything I don’t have on my list for mine.
:)

We have a fireproof box that I keep our Wills, Titles to cars, kid's savings bonds, life insurance policies and birth certificates/SS cards in.
KRISTI, mommy to:
For me it's comforting to know that if something happened, your important things would be together. In case of fire or hurricane evacuation or death it makes me feel secure to know that I wouldn't have to run around like a chicken with me head cutt off trying to track these things down.
That's a good idea putting a video of the kids in there.:)
Looks like I'll need to buy a big box, lol.
I think you are doing a great thing. It might have come out of a tragedy (for the other family), but it brought you some good.
I keep all my important papers in an atache case. I have always wanted to buy a fire proof small safe, espcially since I live in Chicago (the city has burned twice and almost blew up once). Fire scares me to death. But I am single and have not kids, so it is not so important for anything of mine to be really in order (no real assets for anyone to fight over), but it is a good idea for everyone.
This is what I keep togehter:
birth certificate
naturalization certificate
my old passport and other legal documents from then
copy of social security card (I once got two for some reason)
all of my certificate, diplomas, except for my BS and that's because I don't want to fold it.
my divorce decree
my old tax forms (no receipts except those needed to go along with the taxes)
some old IDs
What I think should be include is:
all birth certificates (all family members, including pedigrees if you have them for the animals)
all passports (other items needed to travel: letters, etc.)
all copies of SS, DL, IDs from government
all copies of legal papers to property (house, car, rentals, boat, etc)
all certificate, diplomas, degrees; any school copies of transfers
all unused checks, you can always reach in there and grab a new book when needed
all information to all accounts (bank, IRA, 401k, savings, CD, etc, bonds, stocks, etc)
all old tax forms with all needed papers (attachments)
CD's of photos (scan and then burn as many on one CD)
old home movies burned onto a CD (you can find companies that do this cheaply)
other small mementos you don't want lost and are of value (grandpas gold watch)
If you take a look at this it is mostly papers and flat items, so it should not be that big of a box.
And I don't think is so off topic really. I mean if we are organized so will our finacial life and with organization comes accountability, and with accountability comes responsibility, and with responsibility comes paying your bills and debt on time
well, good luck
Edited 1/18/2005 3:48 pm ET ET by calla_lilly
Definitely not off topic. This is something I am trying to do to: To get organized and cleaned out in a lot of areas of my life. It gives a feeling of control and manageability that really helps with the whole debt thing.
Littlesbigs
It's great that you got all the info together (but what a terrible way of getting around to it! I'm so sorry about your dh's friend!). We did the same thing two years ago when dh had heart surgery. It was kind of the other way around, though. It made me realize our mortality, and that it was incredibly important that both of us know where all the important info is just in case. At the time, I was more worried that something would happen to me and he wouldn't be able to find anything.
We have a lock box that we keep all the really important papers. I have them color coded (how sad am I? If only the rest of my house were that organized!). In the big red binder (it is a plastic accordian file), I have all the main stuff. So I've told dh that if anything happens to me, go into the firesafe box and find the red folder. In there, I have listed all of our accounts (checking, savings & investments - account #'s and who to contact), all insurance info and who to contact, all house and mortgage info (account #'s and who to contact), all car info (titles, we have no liens on cars at the moment), umm...what else? Important phone numbers. I'm not at home at the moment, so I'm sure I'm missing something. I think I have copies of both our birth certificates in there, because somewhere in the depths of my brain I remember that when my dad died, my mom had a hard time getting something without my father's birth and death certificates. If we had passports, I'd probably have those in there, too. Student loan information (#'s and who to contact), cc info, our credit reports.
The second file (a different color) has all the house paperwork. The third file (a different color) has all the car paperwork.
'Course, we also keep other stuff in there. In a future life, I had always planned to make copies of the really important stuff and get it out of the house into a safe deposit box (they're free at our bank with a checking account), just to make sure nothing could happen there.
I got the idea on what to include from Suze Orman's infomercial on her "Life box" or whatever it was called. It had all the important forms in one place. I figured I could save $50 (although I didn't snowflake it... :) ) and do it myself. I felt a lot better once it was all in one place.
Good luck!
Kris
We have a small fire box from Walmart. I think it cost us around $25, but they sometimes have sales where it's cheaper than that.
Inside of ours:
Marriage licenses (county court and church)
Wedding photos (in case our larger albums were to be damaged)
Video tape of our home, inside and out, for insurance purposes
Insurance policies (home, car, and life)
Bank info (accounts, loans)
Utility companies and numbers (in case service has to be cut in an emergency)
Social Security Info
Photos and fingerprints of our younger son (hope I never need to use them)
Photos of our older son who passed away in 1997, including funeral photos.
Information on our older son's cemetary plot (deed, perpetual care info, etc)
Birth certificates
Church documents (baptisms, etc)
I also keep copies of my younger son's homeschool attendence records
Records of our younger son's immunizations
Records of our dog's vaccinations
Also, there's a few sentimental items in there, such as greeting cards or notes that were too heartfelt to throw away or file elsewhere.
Hope this helps!
Thank you ALL for your responses! I AM still working on my box and shredding of old docs that we no longer need. I have gotten some REALLY helpful ideas.
niteswife, (kris) you especially are a woman after my own heart, rotfl - I was SOOO planning on color coating mine too :D.
No matter what my DH says about him being an "able bodied human being" I KNOW for a fact that if something happened to me he'd have NO CLUE that our dog gets vaccinated, where and when, as well as having NO CLUE where his cuticle trimmers are, lol - and the list could go on but I won't rat him out. :)
I also like the idea of vidoetaping or taking pics of the possessions inside the home for insurance purposes. that was suggested. I wanted to do this before Hurricane # 2 hit us but with all the other preparations I never got around to it. I'll have to add that to my list.
I don't have any children right now, but we do have a dog. So in my box I also included phone number, address, and (gasp) mapquest directions to the nearest night time emergency vet, just in case for the dog (and his records and # to his reg. vet). I've done the same in regards to our nearest hospital, I put directions in there just in case an emergency arises I DON'T have to think about that you know?
DH thinks I sometimes take my box to the "extreme" because I'm detailed in what I want - and he's joked that if we DID have an emergency and the box needed to come with us it would be too heavy to lift :).
But I don't care, one day it may come to use and I will be satisfied in my planning for it.
Lastly, I've also started a house binder, with all the info for the appliances - manuals, warranty for them, and then a separate folder for other manuals that would come with us if we moved. I figure whenever I sell my home the new owner won't have to worry about warranty and the manuals for the appliances that come with the home.
Thanks again for all the suggestions, and I guess after this I actually might put my wedding album and vacation albums together.
:)