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Be ready with more than duct tape, food, batteries and a full tank of
gas. See related items below. KwC How
to Prepare for One Really Quick Getaway
By Damon Darlin, NYT, Business, Oct. 01, 2005 What is the first thing you will grab from your home if your
house floods, catches on fire or comes tumbling down in an earthquake? Family
photos? The pets? The Hummel figurines? It probably will not be your financial
and medical records, the very things you will need to rebuild your life after a
disaster. If you are like most people, you have documents stashed in various
places throughout your home, perhaps some under lock and key. And with your
mind racing as danger hits, you are not going to have the time or wherewithal
to figure out which ones you need. In any case, your financial and medical records would be
such a large and unwieldy pile that you would just say forget about it, grab
Fluffy and scramble out of there. Indeed, that is probably your reaction any
time someone suggests you get your records organized. But wait. Do not run away
yet. New technology is making this tedious task less odious, and surprisingly,
it is not that expensive. All told, you can secure your records in a weekend
afternoon. Even better, doing all this has a wonderful side effect: it can put
you in better financial shape to survive a disaster because you will end up a
lot smarter about how you spend and save money. For instance, one of the first
things to do is compile a list of where everything is - account numbers and the
locations of important documents. The list will help you or anyone in your
family locate things you need for the insurance adjuster or relief worker.
(Download a template for this information that you can place
right on your computer.) This is really the "if
hit by a bus" list that financial planners have been
recommending you compile for your heirs. If you think of the list that way, you
will be reminded of your mortality and you will not want to write it. But think
of the families displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita or by California
wildfires, and the psychological barrier collapses. The list becomes a much
easier sell now, said Brent Neiser, a director for the National Endowment for
Financial Education. "It forces you to think," he said. Here is what else you have to do to protect
your records and yourself:
RECORD: Once you have made your basic list, save it on a
U.S.B. flash drive. A 256-megabyte drive, which you can buy for $20 or even
less if you catch a store promotion, gives you enough space for that file and
all the other suggestions mentioned below. Several of the big flash drive makers, like SanDisk
and Lexar
Media,
are now selling more advanced drives that allow you to encrypt the data so
others cannot read it without knowing the alphanumeric key that unlocks the
code. Some are even shock proofed with heavier rubber and plastic coatings.
Those will cost about $10 to $20 more, but are certainly worth it when you
consider the sensitivity of the data on them. It is also a good idea to copy the contents onto additional
drives for backup and for other members of the family. BONUS: When you are listing the credit cards, also note the
credit limits so you will know how much you could spend in an emergency. If
your credit cards are at their limits now, you are not going to have any
cushion to fall back on. So start paying off balances, beginning with the card
carrying the highest interest rate. SCAN: Some important documents are on paper and you will
want copies of them with you: tax returns for the last three years (Form 1040
is all you will need in an emergency), a recent pay stub, birth certificates,
marriage license, the deed to your home and insurance policy pages that list
your coverage. If you do not have a scanner or a printer with a flat scanner,
take the pile of documents down to a copy center like Kinko's to scan. Record
the image files on the U.S.B. drive. BONUS: Take the opportunity to check your insurance coverage
for potential disasters like flooding. With homes appreciating in value, you
may also find you need to increase coverage. SHOOT: Some personal finance advisers suggest that you make
a spreadsheet listing everything you own and enter the date and price paid and
then file all the receipts and ... yeah, yeah. You will never do it. But
creating a detailed inventory of everything you own need not be a major chore
when technology comes to the rescue. Many households now have a camcorder or digital
camera. Walk around each room and take a picture of each item. Then, either
store all the photos on a memory card (unless you live in the Biltmore mansion,
you can load all the photos on a 256- or 512-megabyte card). Or you can
transfer them to the same U.S.B. drive with your other documents. Describe each object on the camcorder soundtrack or in the
file name of the digital photo. Make an extra copy on another card or drive.
"If you give one to your insurance adjuster, you go to the front of the line,"
Mr. Neiser said. For additional protection, you could upload the photos - as
well as all your beloved family photos - to one of the free online photo
services like Flickr.com, Picasa.com,
Snapfish.com, or Kodakgallery.com. Anybody you choose can then have access to them from any
computer anywhere. (Make sure to set the privacy options, though.) BONUS: You are going to discover a lot of stuff you no
longer want or need. Sell it or donate it and take a tax deduction. Intuit,
maker of Quicken and TurboTax, sells a $20 program called ItsDeductible that
estimates the value of donated items, but Bankrate.com and Salvationarmyusa.org have free valuation guides. SECURE: Now it is time for your medical records. You can
place your health history as well as digitized copies of X-rays, scans and
electrocardiograms on the same encrypted flash drive. Those with serious medical conditions may want to consider a
product sold by the nonprofit organization that developed the MedicAlert
bracelet 50 years ago. It sells a special USB flash drive on its Web site, www.medicalert.org, called the E-HealthKey for $85. SanDisk
originally developed the product for the Army. Pop the flash drive into any
computer and a screen flashes with your medical condition to alert emergency
room personnel, for instance, to an allergy or your use of a pacemaker. But
beyond that screen, medical information you enter with the help of a
user-friendly program right on the drive is encrypted. For an additional $20-a-year fee, MedicAlert uploads your
data to its server so you have a backup. The E-HealthKey is only available for
PC's running Windows XP or Windows 2000. You may want to wait until November
when the organization issues an improved version. BONUS: The E-HealthKey software, created by a division of Bio-Imaging
Technologies, also plots your weight, cholesterol or anything you
regularly record, onto a graph. "It's a great wellness tool," said
Ramesh Srinivasan, MedicAlert's vice president for marketing. If you are going
to run for your life, clutching your flash drive and the Hummels, you had
better be healthy. Related
Fill out this
list with your account numbers and locations of important
documents. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/business/01docs.ready.html You can purchase an already compiled Estate Handbook, formatted for an
easy to use binder, from Sustainable Business Network of
Portland (SBNP) member and professional
organizer, Marian Rhys at http://www.marianrhys.com/ and http://www.simply-better.net |
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