Emergency Binder

(Beautiful, right? It looks like a Trapper Keeper.)

So a year or two ago I started following the website, Food Storage Made Easy. It's a fun site with some great tips on getting your food storage and emergency preparedness stuff going. My favorite thing I've learned from that website is the Emergency Binder. I used their list as a guideline and went from there.

Here's their list:
-Birth certificates
-Passports
-SS Cards
-Copies of credit cards, front and back
-Homeowners insurance policy
-Auto insurance policy
-Life insurance policy
-Retirement statements
-Internet passwords
-Immunization records
-Utility statements
-Work/tax documents that would be difficult to replace
-Cash, keep a variety of small bills on hand

So here's what I have:
-Contact info. I have our parents, local family, friends, emergency numbers, doctor's numbers and where we would meet in case of emergency, like a church or school.
-Account info. Anything with an account number basically. I have our account numbers, phone numbers and addresses of the company. This includes utilities (so I don't have to keep a statement in the binder) credit cards, student loans, whatever. It's basically a brief summary of all accounts and important numbers.
-Internet passwords. I know, it's a little scary in a way, but you have to have them somewhere. If I died, my husband would have no clue about half our bills, so at least he'd have all the passwords so he could see what's up. :)
-Important certificates. Birth, marriage, car title, social security cards, immunization cards, etc. I even have my old passport and my vision rx as shown below. (Don't worry. I blurred out some of the info.)
Each member of the family has their own sheet protector, so when I went to Kindergarten registration I only had to grab the sheet protector and everything the school needed was there. Easy.
-Insurance stuff. I have the declaration page for our homeowners insurance, our auto insurance and our extra medical insurance cards.
-Taxes. I keep the last two years worth of tax stuff. The W2s are in sheet protectors. Last year itemizing actually helped, so this year I am also keeping receipts and note to remind me of our deductions so I'm not scrambling at tax time. It's also good to have an extra copy of your return. Oh, I have our property tax stuff in there too.
-Loans. Curse them. I have the statements and any important notices from our student loans including notes from conversations with people so I know what I'm talking about next time.
-401K and stocks. Yes, we have both, although they are sad. We put a tiny bit in a 401K through my husband's work so we have that quarterly statement. I also keep our stock statement. Just so you know, we put a little bit in RIGHT before everything went crazy so we currently have $3.38. Be jealous.
-Mortgage statements and any other info from our lender. Behind these I have our Title insurance.
-Paystubs. My husband's are online now, but I make a tiny bit from coordinating the daycare at a local gym so my last few paystubs are in a sheet protector. I should probably print out a few of Silas's, just in case.
-Random stuff: purchase agreement from our car including warranty information, warranty info on our washer and dryer (which I just purchased and it made me feel like a big girl. I usually hate spending money on warranties, but our machines getting older and I use them CONSTANTLY), print out from our credit reports, and stuff about our alarm system (that's a long story).
-Cash. Honestly, I think this is probably THE MOST IMPORTANT part of the binder, but I don't normally have more than a few dollars. I need to work on that. What if no ATMs or card readers were working? People probably won't take a check if that was the case, so cash is important.
Oh and I got a pretty purple binder so it would be easy to grab if we were panicing. And no, I don't have it sitting out for all to see. Don't worry.

Don't get overwhelmed. Just do one thing at a time. You will feel so good when it's done.

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