Remember that in case of a fire, flood, hurricane, tornado (just had several houses destroyed in the next town) you will not have electricity!! This means your computer will not work, nor will the banks be open to retreive from your safety deposit box!!

About 5 weeks before Hurricane Charley in 2004 we had just organized our financial stuff (include investments, insurance, account numbers and copies of all credit cards, birth certificates, titles to vehicles & home, SS numbers, retirement papers & account numbers, marriage certificate,important phone numbers and contacts) in our Suzi Orman Protection Portfolio. We also includes backup discs, and a few really important photos of deceased parents, grandparents.

We were probably the best prepared, in terms of important papers, in our area. Definitely within our gated community. Being without electricity for 8 weeks, having banks destroyed so you could not access safety deposit boxes, having your home destroyed so all your paperwork was scattered to the 4 corners or so water logged and then molded it was useless, we learned a lesson we will never forget and we have become quite ‘preachy’ about it.

It took neighbors literally weeks to recontruct all necessary paperwork to access insurance, retirement and financial accounts. Remember, there are those people out there that upon finding account numbers will try to use them – sometimes successfully. Having your account numbers provides security for you – you can cancel, put holds on, change passwords to protect yourself. We found our neighbors CHECKBOOK laying in their sideyard-and they were 50 miles away and did not come back for 3 weeks.

It really doesn’t matter what type of organization you use – just use it. Keep it up to date weekly. You just never know what might happen. Don’t let an emergency situation make you say ‘I wish I had’.

Sorry this is so long – but it really is extremely important.

bank accounts
credit accounts
credit reports
investment accounts
loan accounts
pay stubs
receipts
tax returns
utility accounts

each of those is broken down into each account, and then each account has a year folder. it took me a while to figure out how i was going to get all of my stuff together, but this works rather well.

oh, i do suffer a slight ocd problem, or so i have been told. head over to lifehacker for quite a few more ideas.

The “Secure File” is a safety deposit box, and/or a fireproof safe in the home.
It contains Trust documents, wills, birth certificates, etc. Everything in the safety deposit box, or the safe should be in plastic freezer bags. In the event of a fire, the safe should protect the contents, but it’s not waterproof. When the fire dept. comes, they will squirt water everywhere. Same at the safety deposit box.

The “Active File” is a file cabinet with hanging folders and manilla-type folders. The hanging folders have a generic label, like “Bank”. There would be a manilla folder for individual accounts. It also contains insurance documents, car maintenance records, bank/brokerage statements, current year taxes, credit card info, home inventory, employment benefits info, and manuals for household products.

The “Archive File” (in my case) is a tub I got at my local “Office Galaxy” type store. It can also handle hanging folders. It contains periodic statements cycled out of the Active file (I keep them for 5 years). The tax forms are retained permanently.

Hope this helps. I’ll be interested to read other comments.

I hate paper so I bought a Canon scanner that creates PDFs. I collect a pile of papers during the month and then spend about a half hour doing a marathon scanning session. I save the documents to an external hard drive that I can lock up. Every few months I burn a DVD copy of the files for my safe deposit box.

After I am done scanning, all paper gets shredded (unless its an official document like a title or certificate).

Most of my online bills allow me to download PDFs so I periodically log on and download these and save them along side the scans that I have made.

The organization of the saved files is up to you. I have a folder for each year, and then subfolders for type of bill.

After all of this there is one hole in my organization. I still stuff cash register receipts into an envelope and discard them after a couple of years. Most are for day to day purchases that I only need for the 30 day return window. They’re just not worth trying to scan an organize right now.