We can never account for what the future holds. While things may be going well now and we don’t foresee any issues arising, well, you know they say: “Hope for the best but prepare for the worst”.
When it comes to protecting important documents such as copies of passports and birth certificates, you have a few options. It is ultimately best to use multiple forms of backup, but it’s up to you to decide what works best.
Here are a few ways you can protect important documents:
Go Paperless
- You can have bank statements, and other bills sent to you electronically. Then with your logins, they will be accessible at any time.
- The tech side of saving documents has the added benefit of ease. With a smart phone, you can easily snap a picture of documents and put them onto a hard drive later.
- For further electronic back up, consider digital back up. Use an external hard drive to save scanned pictures of social security numbers, birth certificates, and annual tax returns.
- If you are truly organized, you can have a second external hard drive and make copies of all your copies and store the second backup at work or somewhere else safe.
- To keep everything up-to-date, set yourself a reminder on the calendar of your choice to regularly back up your external drives.
Old School Backup
If you feel uncomfortable with the tech world, and how it all works, there are other options.
- A safe, preferably fireproof, is a good choice for protecting documents.
Another option, if you live in an area that is flooding may be a possibility is a watertight container.
