Being prepared for the unexpected means having essential documents (and copies of them) in order and easy to find. Some people call these their Vital Documents. Whatever you call them they are really important! I recently learned that 98% of all South Carolina residents have no will! If that’s your situation and you don’t know where to start, let me know and I can guide you in the right direction!
Do I need a Home Inventory?
Do you have a disaster and or legacy plan? Wondering if you really need a home inventory? Whether you have one started or have nothing at all read on to learn why you need a home inventory and how to protect your personal property.
Almost all of us need a home inventory, whether we rent or own our homes or businesses. If you have insurance, you need an inventory to prove replacement value. If you are leaving things to family, donation, etc, you also may need an inventory.
Sadly, many people think that because they have insurance, they don’t need to worry about a home inventory. Unfortunately, that’s not true. Insurance doesn’t guarantee you will get replacement value for your property. There are so many irreplaceable things, and all the little stuff really adds up. Having a home inventory will save you a huge potential headache, hours, or worse; pocket expenses lost down the drain. When trying to dig your way out of a disaster, or your family is grieving and trying to determine the value of your estate, this can add stress to an already hard situation. When I became a professional organizer, I learned all about the different home inventory systems and tools available. I also helped clients with creating inventory systems both before and after disasters, mostly flooding and some theft. Trust me when I say you don’t want to inventory your stuff after it’s been damaged or try to remember what’s missing! It’s not the insurance company’s responsibility (or your family’s) to know the value of your personal belongings, (and it’s not in their interest to help you with this). If you can’t prove you owned it (meaning tracking down receipts or charges, photos or other documentation), you may lose altogether.
What needs to be inventoried? The quick answer is everything! You are probably thinking this will take ages, and depending on how much detail you want to include, it could be a significant undertaking but really not so bad if you take it step-by-step and room-by-room.
Without an inventory, you could end up with a mess and thousands of dollars in lost assets! In the case of estate planning, your family may be left trying to figure out what is what. Don’t get stuck sorting toilet plungers from kitchen utensils, holiday decor, and more. Document the items in your home, including valuables and everyday items. This inventory should be updated every 2-5 years depending on your circumstances.
I’ve worked extensively on creating inventory for insurance claims and estates. Here’s what you need to know. Photos and videos are your friends! Spreadsheets are super helpful and may prevent you from having to fill out additional information in the event of an insurance claim. But there are other systems out there that are super helpful and can do more for you than just a home inventory.
As the well-known Sheryl Sandberg quote goes, “Done is better than perfect.” So true in the case of an inventory! Just having photos is better than nothing!
A home inventory Checklist can help you to understand what information will be most valuable in the case of an insurance claim. Most insurance companies would like to have the following. The more info you can provide, the more accurate your claim and reimbursement will be. Remember, the more complicated your assets and estate, the more details you will need.
It may not be necessary to have all the information below. Suppose you’re in a disaster situation and realize you don’t have anything. In that case, the short answer is to photograph every wall of every room, even opening cabinets and closets, and take photos of contents by shelf. Take notes on contents to help jog your memory, noting location and a general description. Photograph anything specifically valuable in each room. These photos and notes will prove invaluable if you have to evacuate quickly and lose the property.
Remember, “Done is better than perfect!” What follows is a more detailed guide of what your insurance company might request. Not having all of this does not mean you will not get reimbursed. The more you can provide, the quicker and more smoothly things will move along.
- List items by room- This will help qualify content damage when structural damage has been done.
- Include a basic description
- Make/Model
- Serial or ID number
- Quantity
- Assign value (replacement value will be paid based on current market value-ex. electronics that may have cost you $500 might be replaceable for $200 today)
- Date purchased
- Receipt if available
- Reference photo’s
Home Zada is one of the most comprehensive home management tools out there and does everything from home maintenance reminders to home inventory. If you’re on the serious side of protecting your valuable assets, I can’t recommend a better way to manage it all in one place! This is a cloud-based option so you won’t lose it if you lose your computer!
Another great comprehensive but inexpensive system is Liberty Street Home Manage software (also cloud-based). It’s under $40 and allows you to enter all the important documentation and photos for all your assets (at multiple locations).
Several insurance companies have their systems, so ask your insurance agent what they offer! It will probably be free and give them everything needed if you ever have to make a claim.
Home Contents is a UK Based app that makes home inventory a snap with your digital camera in-phone. And finally, in the app department, My Stuff has several free and paid options with great features for adding items to folders, tagging, etc for easier sorting and organizing.
If you prefer to stick with a spreadsheet-style inventory, just do a quick search for Home Inventory Checklist to find quite a few good options for free. Most of these templates you can download and use on your computer/device.
Spreadsheet systems (I’ve used comprehensively with insurance agents to recover contents lost) can be clunky, and it’s difficult to see photos of items with their descriptions quickly. Another drawback is that unless you back up your computer or device, you risk losing your inventory (photos and checklist) and your contents in case of a disaster!
If a home inventory for disaster or estate planning is something you want help setting up, let me know, and I’d be glad to assist!
No matter what system you choose, I hope you make a plan, schedule it on your calendar, and start your home inventory today!
Step-By-Step prep for natural disasters
No matter where you live, it’s practically impossible to ignore and vital to prepare for natural disasters! With the change in our climate, especially if you live along the coastlines, it pays to get organized, ‘Just in Case’ there’s a natural disaster!
On cue for hurricane & fire season, it’s time to prepare for natural disasters.
Do you have a plan i, know your evacuation route, and have supplies ready?
Sanctuary Spaces Challenge
Our homes have become so much more for each of us over the past year! If you struggle with clutter or not able to create sanctuary spaces for yourself to retreat to please use the tips and guidance of this four-week challenge and jump in at any time. Do as much as or as little as your life needs.
This challenge focuses on clearing the spaces in our home that collect clutter. Each week or segment tackles the clutter in the corners, on the surfaces, and hiding behind closed doors.
Week 1: Sweep the surfaces
Week 2: Clear cabinets & closets
Week 3: Deep clean drawers
Week 4: Box & Bin binge
Clutter collects where items don’t have a permanent home. Horizontal surfaces can be a major source of clutter collection for so many people. They just seem to fill up moments after they are cleared. Know yourself and your family/household members. Are you “Pilers”? If so, identify what lands on those surfaces and find ways to relocate them or collect them neatly. For surfaces that collect the same clutter over and over, create containers for spare change, loose papers, hooks for keys, masks, and other everyday items. Give everything on every surface a home and get in the practice-AKA-Habit of daily, and weekly maintenance to keep things in order.
👖👕👓👞
Each day this week, pick a room or a category and systematically weed out the clutter, collecting it in bags or boxes to be donated, sold, or given away. Think about these spaces that contain kids’ clothes, your clothes, the kitchen pantry, and cabinets in the kitchen, laundry, and bathrooms! Remember that clutter collects where items don’t have a permanent home. These hidden spaces are the storage workhorses of our homes and need to be regularly maintained so that they don’t get clogged up. Remember the one-in-one-out rule to help keep a handle on the everyday items that live in these spaces.
🖇🗄✏
Most of us have drawers in almost every room with lots of space for hidden clutter.
🍴🔑✂️
Each day this week, systematically weed out the clutter, collecting it in bags or boxes to be donated, sold, or given away. It’s time to tackle the kitchen drawers *including everyone’s favorite #junkdrawer, bathroom drawers, file cabinet drawers (purge those papers each year), and sock drawers to name a few.
🔎🧦🧤
Like past weeks, pick a category (papers, clothing accessories, kitchen items, etc) and work through each one systematically purging. Kids and other household members can help, assign a drawer, and dive in!
📦
These are great places to store things that we need to keep but don’t want to see, BUT, for some people that’s out of sight is out of mind. When things get tucked away for long periods, we forget about them & which means we probably don’t need it! It’s time to tackle them! Think about where you have things in bins & decide which ones need to be sorted through. Some baskets & bins get used regularly, those might need a quick review. It’s the stuff in deep storage that can become a hidden burden. It might be the right time to let that clutter go!
🗃🗳
Each day this week, systematically weed out the clutter, collecting it in bags or boxes to be donated, sold, or given away.
📦
Like the past 3 weeks, pick a category or space (papers, clothing accessories, kitchen items, etc) and work through each systematically purging. Kids and other household members can help, assign a bin, and dive in!
Decluttering & having space to keep what you need in convenient, easy to access storage is one major step in that direction!
Any time is the best time to start! It doesn’t have to happen room by room. You can start creating sanctuary in a drawer, a closet, or a box by decluttering storage spaces all around your home.
As you find ease in these spaces & with the process of decluttering, make it a regular part of your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly home maintenance schedule.
Maintaining the clutter is a part of life! Begin the process before clutter comes into your home. I hope this will be a year with more sanctuary & less clutter in all your spaces.
Closets-the most frighting space in your home?
Guest post from the desk of Celeste B.
What is the most frightening space in your home? I’ll bet it is a closet of some kind, the place where the detritus of modern living has accumulated and grown neglected. Whatever else might be growing there is not to be ignored either. Wallace and I don’t have a garage, which I describe as the American ultra-closet for many people. Instead of renting a storage locker, many homeowners have co-opted the “extra” space taken up by the second car and dedicated it to barbeque grills, canoes, roof racks, children’s playthings, freezers, adult playthings, infrequently used tools, unfinished projects, unpacked moving boxes, wedding presents and generally redundant or bulky items that are rarely called into service, such as the trailer for the float you build for the July fourth community parade and that you don’t want to get rusty in the driveway.
Somewhere you have probably got a closet dedicated to similar use: housing family movies or slides with their projectors, sports equipment, never used vacuum cleaner attachments, orphaned framed art and bric-a-brac including that fondue set with all the skewers still in its box. There is nothing sentimental about fondue unless you enjoyed it on your honeymoon in Quebec, a lovely city.
Your reluctance to tackle the closet cleanup is not uncommon. Everyone has it and, besides, what are you going to do with all that stuff once it is sorted out? A pile in the hall is no different than one in the closet and re-distribution is a temporary solution. You have to agree with your partner to accomplish this cleanup because there may be items precious to one of you that deserve special consideration. Woeful is the partner who sends the varsity letter jacket to the second hand store without permission. Blessed is the organizer who seeks approval before, during or after a closet purge. Hoarding is another matter altogether and there is probably no agreement available to assuage the concerns of that pathology.
Supposing that you are operating as one coordinated force on this, then there is a happy avenue for de-accessioning, as the museums call it. The yard/garage sale is by far the most satisfactory because, not only do you enjoy seeing people appreciate your stuff, they actually pay you for it. It is amazing always to see the cheery buyers sifting through the crockery, books, art and cast-off furniture, ever on the lookout for treasures overlooked by the rest of the world. It is somehow satisfying to see these burdens taken on by others as if they are financial Samaritans. And best of all, the many charitable second hand stores have liberalized their acceptance policies so you are able to load up most of the failed sales and freight them over for receipt, thereby putting many disadvantaged people to work in furthering the life of these goods. That is a win-win with a tax deduction to boot!
Kisses, Celeste
Thank you Celeste! Your practical tips and lighthearted attitude will help us all laugh at our clutter conundrums no doubt!
*If you would like to hear more from Celeste please contact me. I’m sure she would be delighted to learn of your enthusiasm and I’m happy to pass your message along as well as ask her to join us again with more fun and lighthearted posts!
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