We have previously discussed the importance of organization in our lives and, most importantly, our financial lives. One key component to this is having a clear, concise means of gaining access to the information you need when you need it. It is essential to have original signed documents locked safely away in a fireproof safe, but in this highly digital age, there is another way to keep vital records safely. Instead of stuffing a safe full of paperwork, we can scan documents into our computer and save them to a conveniently small portable flash drive or a cloud-based document server such as Google Drive or Dropbox. These alternatives give us an encrypted and secure means to place our essential documents. The originals can be kept safe and secure in a safety deposit box, while the digital backup can be stored at home or stored online to be easily accessed and on demand.
As we go through life, we collect various pieces of paper significant to our existence. Among these are birth, death and marriage certificates, deeds, life insurance policies, stock certificates, wills, powers of attorney, and so on. In reality, how often do we go into these documents and pull them out? The answer is not often. However, the key to these documents is the ability to put your finger on them when needed. Digitizing them is an easy way to do it. Once they are digitized, you can place the originals in a safe and secure place for availability when you need actual originals.
Digitizing documents is only one of the ways you can utilize this technology. We often suggest our clients take a video of their home and its contents or go through and catalog specific items with a digital camera. This way, if anything should happen to your home, you have a visual source to show the items and the original receipt you scanned to show the price of those items. Doing this in advance takes all the guesswork out of making a homeowner’s claim down the road. Access to these documents, photos, and other pertinent items will make life much easier for you if you ever need them.
Choosing the proper digital storage is crucial because you will need to find something with some staying power to make your life easier. Digital media has gone through many phases over the years. It has gone from the giant floppy discs of the 80s to the smaller diskettes, zip drives, CDs, hard drives, external large capacity hard drives, flash drives, to most recent storage in the cloud. Digital media is ever evolving and constantly becoming more efficient. It is taking our lives from paper to paperless, with the digital world bringing us virtual filing cabinets and storage, taking up no physical space in our lives. Storing digital backups on your computer’s hard drive can be very convenient, but it does not always make sense. Computers are vulnerable to viruses and crashing. We suggest a solid state flash drive to store your documents in all cases. As a backup, we recommend keeping them somewhere else using the cloud, which is simply an external server system housed at various locations in the world. This way, your information can be in its original form, stored on a flash drive for your convenience and backed up by external servers for quick accessibility and safe from being lost.