Documentation Binders


 

A documentation binder is one that an individual puts together for their own use, so if you have to evacuate your home, you have any and all vital information in one place should you need to evacuate your home. You put all your vital and pertinent information like insurance information, Social Security Numbers, birth  certificates, bank account information, loan, credit cards, etc. In the back pocket I have a copy of our living trust.  You should put this binder in a place you can grab it quickly.  We keep ours in a fireproof, locked safe. 

Here are some other tips and suggestions on documentation binders:

Meck Mom's Favorite Bright Ideas - Keep important documents organized with this simple binder system

We're doing a HFPE on Financial Preparedness and wanted to do something like this. Instead of reinventing the wheel I went online and found this from last year's Women's Conference at BYU.  I edited it and cut out stuff about losing a spouse and funeral arrangements (we'll talk about that another day). I formatted it to fit on 2 sheets of paper (or we might do front and back) landscape 2 columns. We're getting 1/2" binders that you can slip a page in the front (Costco for $1.26 here or $1.34 on their website). A sister is  designing the front. I haven't seen it yet. We'll put the instructions  in the front and include several page protectors. At our Enrichment  meeting we're having an LDS lawyer and LDS CPA talk about financial  preparedness. The lawyer's going to talk about estate planning too.  We've had sisters submit their questions and we don't plan to have the presenters take questions during the presentation. (Lawanna Casto)

What I did is I scanned all of my info in:

-Family SSN#'s and Birth Certs
-All insurance info (life, car, home, medical)
-All account info and numbers
-I made a spreadsheet of all accounts (bank, credit card, mortgage, student loan, etc. - whatever I paid monthly or used for banking) and put all account numbers, any web addresses, account user names and passwords, and phone numbers on the sheet
-I put copies of all investment information and retirement plan papers
-I copied front and backs of all credit cards
-I copied baby record books and immunizations for both of my boys
-I copied all home purchase info - deeds, titles, purchase docs
-I copied Temple Recommends, Voter registrations, donor cards, and a family picture
-I copied car titles and drivers licenses and I copied all home bills (gas, electric, phone, etc.)

I scanned this in and then burned about 4 or 5 of these disks - I gave one to my parents, one to my in-laws, one to my sister in law (who would probably end up with my kids if something happened to us) - I did say to only use it in the case of emergency:). I have a couple of copies - I have a copy on my husband's computer and one on mine. I feel pretty safe that someone could get our stuff together with all of this in one place - especially my husband if something happened to me:) Eventually I want to get a fire-safe safe to put this disk in, but for now there are copies throughout the United States, so we should be good. (Kathy Kimball / ga10062006)