So all last year I promised myself that we would get our 72-hour kits together. Come November and NOTHING had been done about it! So I gave myself permission to just get started instead of trying to finish in the last two months of the year. As I started making my lists and doing my research it all felt very overwhelming, so I decided to just focus on one thing that I could get done during the holidays (and then decided to make it NEXT year's goal instead!).
In every emergency situation one of the most important things is your information. You need some way to prove that your kids are actually yours, your car is yours, your home is yours, you are who you say you are, and also access to any money (this is assuming banks, etc., are working). I don't have all that memorized and it seemed a good idea to have it all together so I could grab it and go. So this is my Emergency Documents Binder. It doubles as a place where I can find information I may need when asked for SS cards, birth certificates, immunization records, etc.
A quick note--I know that it can be very dangerous to have all this together. Please be smart and do what is right for YOUR family. We have decided that this is better for us than the multiple files it was all spread across previously, but if you don't like it I completely understand! The important thing is to do what's right for you. That being said, if you do make something like this make sure it is hidden or safe somewhere. Some people even keep it off-site and just have copies at their home. A fireproof safe is a good idea so that if something happened and you couldn't come back home to grab stuff it would be okay. (I don't have one yet, so if anyone has a kind they like let me know!) Okay, this is what is in my binder. Like I said, I only made it up last year so if you have stuff to add please share it in the comments!
Our Binder is a typical 1" three-ring binder with covers that let you slip things in and has pockets in the front and back. Don't worry too much about the binder at first. My advice is to gather together the items that you want in your binder, and then buy a binder to fit your needs. Other people have bought the kind you can zip up for better protection. I also use a TON of sheet protectors and those little baseball card holders. Also, I used most of my printables from this website: http://www.yourownhomestore.com/survival-kit-series-week-23-important-documents/. She has some fantastic ideas too, so be sure to read the series when you have time.
Cover: In the cover we have our evacuation list. This is what we would grab if given a few minutes to get stuff into the car before we have to evacuate (for example, if the summer fires forced evacuation).
In the front pocket are some extra sheet protectors (this makes it easy to add things as I think of them). In the back pocket I have emergency cash. You decide how much you will need, but put it in small bills and coins.
The first page is our page of Important Phone Numbers. I just used the printable on the webpage listed above and modified it to fit our needs. There is also a copy of this for babysitters on our pantry door, which is nice :)
The next page has two family pictures from this year. Somewhere I read that you don't just want separate pictures of your people, you want to see them together to prove you are a family if something happens (like while the kids are at school or something).
The next page is a baseball card sheet protector (sorry, I don't know what these are really called!) with our SS cards, and copies of all our CC cards. (Again, make sure this is in a REALLY safe place!). It also has copies of our drivers' licenses and each of our health insurance cards. This takes up a couple of pages. Don't forget to copy the backs if there is anything important on them (like ins. cards have phone numbers, etc.)
Then I have each of our ID kits. There was a Child ID kit post on here a couple of posts back and ours are like that one. I used the printables again from the link above and just filled them out. Each of these are in sheet protectors as well, and in the same sheet protector I have anything that is specific to that person (birth certificates, passports, immunization records, my husband's work license and proof that he is in the army, etc.) On the back side of that sheet protector (so when you flip the page you see it) I have our individual church records page.
So to recap:
page 1--Important phone numbers
page 2--family pictures
page 3--copies of cards (SS, DL, CC, etc.)
page 4--Jim's ID kit and information
page 5--My ID kit and information
page 6--My oldest daughter's ID kit and information
okay, pause!
After each child's ID page is another sheet protector with things that are usually on the computer but that I would be sad to lose. This includes their New Year's goals (we do this every year), their blessing transcript, and letters that I write to them on their birthday to remind myself of things they learned, did, accomplished, etc. throughout the year. It's not EMERGENCY stuff per say, but it's important to me.
okay...so I have all of that for each of my kids. It sounds like a ton, but the sheet protectors make it pretty easy to manage and contain.
After that we have a printed ward directory and a very old, not updated ward map :)
Then we have our Passwords page. This is a huge job, but so worth it (I use it at least once a week). My husband and I had to sit down and go through every account and website and anything that we possible had an account with or a password too. We have important ones like banking, but also less-important ones like Target and Walmart and Costco. We have ones we use every day like his school login, and ones that we never look at like our auto loan account. It takes forever and you will probably have to keep thinking about it for a while (unless you are already on top of it!). We have ended up with 76 so far. Part of what makes this hard is you really have to think outside the box--do you have your voicemail codes written down somewhere? How about your house alarm? It's not just for you--if something were to happen to you, you need to have all this for whoever takes over for your kids. You can't give them the code to login to your computer if you are not there, but you can leave it behind for them. So this takes a while, but you can do it really easily. Put an excel spreadsheet on the fridge and whenever you think of another thing you need a password or code for, write it down there. We have put down the website or title of the place/what it is/ any account or policy numbers/the login/and the password. So an entry looks like this:
website.com description account # login password
After our passwords I have other assorted pages. For example, I have a list of my sheet music in case it all burned up, someday I'd like to list my books so they can be replaced, and I have a home inventory (a list of our possessions for the insurance company). Our insurance company (Liberty Mutual) has an app that lets us keep a simple inventory. We really like it and it makes it easy to update the inventory. You can find it on their website. Our insurance also replaces the item itself, not the cost which is why it's important for us to do things like list the books. You should do what works with your insurance company.
After that is our house paperwork, our insurance paperwork (life, health, car, and renter's policies, cards, etc.) our car paperwork, and our student loan paperwork. Basically I just tried to get any paperwork I would need if we couldn't return to our filing cabinet or home.
Then we have our will.
Last of all we have some printed off instructions for an emergency. These include paperwork on basic first aid (how to treat burns, etc.) from www.stjohn.org.au, and paperwork on purifying water during an emergency. I'd like to add more to this soon. Remember, in an emergency you will probably not have internet or a printer nearby, and you won't want to waste cell power looking things up.
Okay! That's it! This binder isn't a two-hour project; it's kind of a big job. But it has given us a lot of peace of mind, and it makes it much easier to grab the things I need (like immunization cards for doctor's appointments) or look up the information I need (like car insurance policy numbers) quickly. Hopefully this helps!
