Morning!
Bet you didn’t know you’d wake up to THIS today! :) But it’s actually a real day, and all geared around keeping those people in your life safe, as well as your sexy valuables.
Here’s the origination of National SAFE Day, although unfortunately it’s not much of a happy one :(
“National SAFE Day was founded by the family of 13-year-old Brooklynn Mae Mohler, who was accidentally shot and killed when her best friend picked up and played with a loaded, unsecured handgun found in a kitchen cabinet. Every year, children die due to accidental shootings that could have been prevented by responsible gun security.
National SAFE Day encourages everyone to:
- Secure all firearms
- Ask whether there are any unsecured firearms in the homes your children visit
- Frequently talk to your children about the dangers of firearms, and to
- Educate and Empower others to be SAFE
And that 2nd point up there is a biggie as guns are now in over 55% of households! Which means your kids – and my kids! – have been in homes with guns whether they’re properly secured or not… And I gotta be honest – I rarely think to ask about this when letting my kids go over to their friends’ houses. I don’t even know an appropriate way to bring it up, do you?
But apparently even just a modest increase of people locking up their guns reduces gun-related youth suicide and accidental death by 1/3, and with the gun population now surpassing the *people* population in our country (!), it’s even more important we do our best to protect our loved ones!
And one of the best ways to do this, of course, is to stash them in a literal safe :) As well as all your other valuables and important docs for that matter – which we’ll now switch our attention to so this post doesn’t get any more depressing!
Before we get to that though, let me real quickly give a shout to Alpha Guardian for partnering up with me on this today as I’ve already learned a ton just researching SAFE day, but also for making it their mission to try and get one safe in every single household – which is something I strongly believe in too, and you as a personal finance nerd should as well!
Long-time readers know I’ve been rockin’ safes for years now, and gun safety aside, they’re also imperative to help protect your stuff from other kinds of nasty surprises too such as theft, fire outbreaks, mud slides, hurricanes and Lord knows what else this weather of ours will come up with! Ain’t nothing seems off-limits anymore?!
(Remember when I said let’s stop talking about depressing stuff?? Haha….)
But while we can’t control *everything* in life, we can at least do our best to put barriers in the way of this madness, and owning a safe is a simple way to do so.
So let’s play a game here…
I’ll tell you all the stuff I store in *my* safe and why, and then you tell me all the stuff in *yours* and we’ll see who’s is juiciest ;) Cool?
I’ll go first and then it’s your turn… No flaking out on me!!
Everything we keep in our safe, and why:
- Our passports, birth certificates, marriage paperwork, all other important documents (so they don’t burn up in fires, and so we also can find them super easily whenever needed!)
- Our boxes of old check books in case they ever come back in style again (hah!)
- My small, but precious, coin collection (which fortunately (?) doesn’t take up much room)
- My favorite basketball cards from back in the day (do people still collect those?!)
- My back up external hard drives for all pictures, spreadsheets, LOL cats (don’t judge!)
A sack of gold(that would be nice)- And then a wad of $500 in all different denominations in case of a zombie apocalypse and/or business opportunities that may land on my lap ;)
Credit is nice, but cold hard cash still rules the world! Haha…
Your turn now!! What do YOU store in your safe, and why?
What’s that?
You don’t feel like sharing anymore??
And I basically divulged all my secrets for nothing?!
Okay then, well let’s try this….
Who wants a brand new $200 fireproof safe for their home?
Along with a wad of 100 $1.00 bills in it??
You do? Awesome! All you have to do to enter is TELL ME WHAT’S HIDING IN YOUR SAFE!!!!
*evil laugh*
And if you don’t have one yet and that’s why you’re on this giveaway, then just tell me what you *would* put in it if you happen to win and that works too :)
You don’t have to divulge everything btw, just tell me a few of the things you find important to store there, and then feel free to go anonymously if it makes you more comfortable.
Here’s the safe that’s up for grabs today, courtesy of Alpha Guardian who owns some of the most popular safe brands out there as Cannon Safe, GunVault, and then Stack-On who made today’s safe. Would make an excellent upgrade if you already have one, or even a gift to someone else!
This large fireproof personal safe features all-steel welded construction to provide protection that goes far beyond that of similarly priced composite safes. The electronic lock allows you to program a personalized 3–8 digit combination, has a low battery warning system, and includes a backup key.
Features:
- Fireproof for 30 minutes up to 1400° F (verified by an independent laboratory)
- Electronic lock stores a 3-8 digit combination – backup key included
- 2-way locking with 4 solid-steel live-action bolts and 2 deadbolts
- Welded-steel construction
- Low battery warning system
- 2 adjustable carpeted shelves
- Door opens beyond 180°
- Mounting hardware included
- Keypad can be silenced
Want it?? Just tell me what you’d put in here, and you’ll be entered to win!
I already know one thing that’ll be in it – a wad of 100 one dollar bills!!! Woop woop! Just don’t spend them all in one spot, if you know what I’m sayin’ ;)
Make sure to get your entry in by this Sunday night at midnight, and then we’ll announce the winner shortly thereafter on Monday morning (both on this same blog post, as well as by directly reaching out to the winner). And U.S. residences only I’m afraid… you don’t even wanna know that shipping cost!
Big thanks again to Alpha Guardian for hooking us up today, and for all the info around SAFE Day for that matter… Sucks it was started around such a tragic event, but at least more people now are talking about it like us!!
If you’re on social media and want to help us pass on the word, please do so and tag #NationalSAFEDay. I’m not sure if it’s a “thing” yet, but maybe we can help make it one? ;)
Good luck, everyone!
***UPDATE*** The giveaway is now over! Thanks for participating everyone!! The lucky winner of the Stack-On safe is…. Sarah D. Congrats!! Will be reaching out to you shortly to get your info :) And for everyone else, I hope you’ll still consider picking one up to safeguard all your treasures over there!! And your firearms!
UPDATE II: For a list of my favorite overall responses from this giveaway (the funniest, smartest, and even creepiest!), visit our recent blog post: All the interesting stuff people put in their safes ;)
*****
PS: I was also gifted a safe from Alpha Guardian for promoting this, although sadly there were no wads of cash stacked in it, womp…
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Such an important topic, especially when it comes to gun safety!
No guns in our safe, but we have some emergency cash, foreign currencies for travel, personal documents (passports, birth certificates etc), old-school DVD backups, engagement ring. It’s a tiny safe, so that’s it.
Hey J,
I’d just dump a bunch of cash in there so I can feel like Scarface or something! Haha!
I wouldn’t hold that against you :)
Hi Jay,
I would put the following in a safe:
-cash
-trust and will documentation for my wife and I
-Recent backup hard drive from desktop computer
-birth certificates for each family member
-1 item of my daughter’s choice (probably a stuffed animal or one of her books)
Thanks for the entry into this giveaway!
James
Cool idea with the daughter’s choice, haha…
I wonder what my boys would pick if I asked them? Hmmm…
I’d put all my important documents (passport, birth cert, SS card, etc.) considering they are currently in a cheap lock box. Need to upgrade that eventually!
I keep my family’s passports, stacks of checks that get used at most 3 times a year, credit cards that I have but don’t use, various info cards like health/dental insurance (not really sure if those need to be in there but couldn’t find a better place), a stack of US bonds given to us when my daughter was born, the title to my beat down car (also because I don’t know where else it would go), and some personal papers. Sadly no wad of cash in there yet. The copy of the important bits in my computer is a great idea. Think I know what I’ll be doing today…
Love that she has bonds!!! I used to have some too passed down from me over the years, but eventually cashed them out before I lost them an re–invested them in my IRA… Was fun to research them though and see how much they’ve compounded (or not) over the years :) In fact, I even blogged about it! Here we are!
https://budgetsaresexy.com/bye-bye-bonds-hello-roth-iras/
You could also convert them electronically too if you ever want to later… I don’t think they sell the paper ones anymore?
We keep all the important docs you listed plus a copy of our will. No money for back up cash, but if I win you will start that for me :) Thx for the tips and great posts!
This is a great and unique idea for a giveaway!
My safe would include all my wills and personal papers of course.
I don’t own any nice jewels or anything like that but I would definitely be adding my precious Troy Aikman memorabilia from Super Bowl XXVIII!
Thanks for the chance at winning!
Do you mean your Mark Rypien memorabilia from Super Bowl XXVI?? ;)
Right now we have a safety deposit box with important documents (passports, birth certificates), but in a safe is keep some extra cash, jewelry, those same documents and anything else I’d want to keep safe. No guns lol
Our “safe” is literally overflowing – we cannot close it lol – probably doesn’t help it’s a suitcase variety where we can tote it around.
If we could put anything else in it, for sure our Nano S (for crypto holdings), thumb drives for backup docs (taxes, home docs, etc) and cash used for upcoming trips. Last but not least our change in a coffee can (Chock Full O’ Nuts!) for a rainy day (came in clutch for our wedding).
You can store crypto on a Nano?! Very interesting!
J$:
I believe Corey is talking about something like this.
https://smile.amazon.com/Ledger-Nano-Cryptocurrency-Hardware-Wallet/dp/B01J66NF46/
It’s a secure way to store crypto offline instead of using an online account.
Mr. SoS
I’ve def. heard that is much safer for hacking reasons….
Although of course it opens up a whole other problem of *losing it* haha…
What I would put in our safe:
– Passports, social security info, marriage info
– Hard copies of all of our account (bank, credit union, credit cards, etc) login information
– Life insurance policies
– Vehicle and home insurance policies
– Mortgage, roof warranty, window warranty info
– Backup hard drive (although heat of a fire would probably cause damage) of documents and photos
– Any additional important records
– The handgun my father gave me
– Probably some cash, just to have it on hand in case of emergency
I would keep passports, car titles, house info, social security cards, back up of important photos (nieces, Disney vacations and the cat :), small wedding photo album (tiny wedding – best day ever), and all non-expiring Disney tickets!!. Of course, there would also be cash.
I am the museum director at the Crane Museum so if you ever want to talk about paper currency, I’m your girl!!
Woahhhh that’s a cool gig!!! I bet you enjoy it there so much! :)
Don’t have a safe, that’s why I’m entering for a chance to win one ;)
I would out in the following:
Passports x 3 (my hubby is a dual citizen)
Gift cards bought because of discounts/credit card bonuses (travel hacking)
Important documents (marriage certificate, immigration papers, birth certificate)
Checks (should we need them again)
Awesome giveaway! As a single mom living in a neighborhood that has had a few break-ins, I have considered getting a firearm, so winning a safe might tip me over the edge if I had a safe place to keep it!
Otherwise, it would be our birth certificates and passports, my will, a copy of passwords to all my financial accounts for my brother to find if anything happened to me, and…..that’s probably it.
Our safe would include all of my wife’s gold jewelry from India that her mom won’t let her have back until we get a safe in our house.
Haha….
What a great idea. I would put our wedding rings in there, our important documentation, and some collectibles.
My current safe is a gift from a buddy who’s house flooded (3 feet!) during some historic flooding that happened in and around Baton Rouge a few years ago. Insurance covered him for a new one, and he was going to take this one to the scrap yard, so i gave him $20 for it instead and saved him a trip! It’s a tall safe, so all the handle/combination/locking parts stayed above water, but I did have to gut the interior carpeting and (unfortunately) the fire-proofing from the inside and build some new wooden shelves.
Currently just keep a bunch of good ol guns in it, but would like a fire resistant safe to keep our documents and hard drives in! Passports, birth certs, SS cards, and our backup backup hard drives haha (can’t ever be too safe with a lifetime of digital pictures!)
I would totes put just about everything you said in there. Important docs: birth certs, marriage license, passports, visas, an “If I go missing” file courtesy of Crime Junkie (everyone please go get addicted to this podcast so I’m not the only one), tax returns (gotta hide those SSNs), etc. Checks, external hard drives, cash for emergencies, and probably our DSLR if it fits.
That “if i go missing” file sounds interesting!!! Going to google now!
I’d put our passports, social security cards, and recent tax records in the safe.
In my (boring but necessary) safe I have passports, wills, birth certificates
..the usual. But so much usual stuff it won’t close. A new one (with the added $$ bonus!)would be groovy.
We don’t have one yet, but have been looking for one for a while. We intend to store the following in one:
-$1000 cash for an emergency
-passports
-old savings bonds (but not old enough)
-liscenses and titles we have laying around
-social security cards/birth certificate ID type of paperwork
-and anything I confiscate from my kids as consequences
Thanks for having this contest!
I am more excited about the possibility of winning a safe than I am about the wad of $1.00 bills inside! I would keep paper in it that I do not access often but that I need to keep safe–my will and health directives, the passport that I am going to apply for any day now, and a few pieces of gold jewelry that I don’t wear often but that I would certainly hate to see melted in a fire. Thanks for the opportunity to enter!
Thanks for participating :)
Hi there! I don’t have a safe yet and I must admit that up until now I hadn’t thought much about getting one. I would for sure keep my passport, birth certificate, and other personal papers in there, as well as thumb drives with photos and documents. Beyond that I have a few family heirlooms that I would put in, family photos, and some gift cards.
Considering that I put all my VIP papers in the top drawer in my room (unlocked), it’s “safe” to say I’m pretty jazzed about this giveaway! I would put those papers and my favorite childhood/adult photos and memorabilia in it. I would also store my passport (also just on a top shelf in my closet) and second sets of keys on it (labeled…what is THIS one for again?!)
:)
Thanks, J-Money!
I would put:
-A few pieces of silver (old 50 cent pieces)
-$500 cash money (currently stored in an old sock)
-Passports
– Social security cards
– Birth certificates
We keep our passports, marriage certificate, ss cards, and other impt documents. Ours is too small to hold much more!
I would keep our Legacy Binder in a safe. I started gathering and organizing it last year and it needs to be stored in a “safe” place instead of the corner of my desk where it is now. I also have a 1/25 gold Snoopy coin that would need to go in there, along with my cash stash. And maybe I’d throw my FI journal in there (that I just started this year) to make it harder for anyone to read.
OOoOOOOoooOOOo very fun items!! Love that you’re doing the Legacy Binder, and even more so the FI Journal!! What’s in there exactly? Thoughts of your journal/money so far?? Graphs or charts?? I want to know!!! :)
Great give-a-way! My sister’s family hunts & they are HUGE into safety–and the proper safe!
Ours is tiny, has passports, bonds, mortgage papers, & recent tax returns in it. Also a dvd from our one trip to Disney with all the pic’s on it!
Thank you for bringing more awareness to firearm safety as well and such a great idea for a giveaway!
Our safe would contain the following:
– important documents such as passports, birth certificates, marriage license, etc
– firearms (ammo stored separately in case a child does manage to access the safe)
– my own little coin collection
– meaningful trinkets my wife and I have gifted to each other
– The wad of 1’s from the giveaway in case of emergency (too bad that won’t earn interest!!!)
–
Good idea w/ separating out the ammo like that!!
Our safe (locked document box) currently holds:
-Passports,
-Birth Certificates,
-Social Security Cards,
-Marriage Certificate,
-Mortgage Documents,
-Titles (2 Cars, House),
-Will and Estate Documents (Copies),
-Savings bonds that have not been converted to the electronic ones yet, and my family’s favorite item:
-Autographed Poster of the Miracle on Ice Team signed by all members with the exception of Herb Brooks.
Heyyyy!!!! We just watched that movie the other day – very cool!!l
Why not frame it and hang on the wall for everyone to enjoy, though? :)
We don’t have a safe but do have a small lockbox. We keep important papers such as passports, marriage certificates, my licensing credentials, etc. Recently, I’ve thought about adding some cash in case of an emergency but living in the North East we don’t really have hurricane season or anything so I hadn’t really thought about it before.
If I had a safe I’d put in the lockbox items plus cash and valuable jewelry that doesn’t get worn often.
I’d put my cash, electronic, and important documents inside! And my usb drive with all my important electronic documents ;) and pictures
To answer your question about how to bring it up… just do it and don’t beat around the bush. If there are guns in the house my precious little ones aren’t allowed over. In all my time asking I’ve only one person has ever taken issue and that was actually dear old grandma!
What’s in my safe? Nothing sexy. We have a small fireproof safe that fits neatly away in the closet. We store all the usual stuff like important documents (passports, old drivers licenses, birth certificates, insurance info, life insurance policy), a few pieces of jewelry including the first ever cheap-o ring I bought for my then girlfriend, and a few other items we just didn’t know where else to put them. Then there are two external hard drives with pictures of our 15 years together including pets, vacations and kids, and one filled with totally legitimate movies ;-)
Good ol’ grandma, haha…
You’re right though – I know I *shouldn’t* worry about upsetting anyone, but it’s just in my nature to avoid drama so always trying to find the ultimate way of doing things :)
I have a small fireproof and waterproof safe with birth certs, passports, car titles, house title info, marriage cert, and some cash; because once in a blue moon you need some cash fast! This is one that you can pick up and walk out the door with it, which makes it not too secure in a robbery. I would love to have one that is secured to the floor so it is not easy to walk out with it. If I had something I could secure to the floor it would be nice to keep all those credit cards in it, when I am not using them to get the next bonus of points or miles or cash back.
Things that would go in to a safe would be my passport, social security card, title to car, external backup drive and a couple of photos.
What an awesome giveaway! And funny – because I sometimes feel like I should get a (2nd) safe for the house. You see, my husband got one a few years ago and has it filled with all this miscellaneous stuff he thinks has value. I’ve mentioned to you before that we don’t agree on finances and keep things separate – ha ha – apparently it extends to the level of safe contents. Plus it’s small, and has a dial – and it’s temper mental and therefore difficult for me to open/access (it’s the safe, not me – I swear!). This digital one would be great for me! Anyway – the hubs keeps some cash in his safe, and weird things like an old Tiger Woods collector card, a Playboy magazine he bought in Russia 25 years ago, and some papers for his business. For myself – I keep some cash (like you – a variety of bill sizes), my important papers [old fashioned stock certificates, titles to my cars, savings bonds for our kids, credit cards not currently in the rotation, etc.] my ICE binder, old international coins I don’t know what to do with, & jewelry in much less “safe” places that definitely aren’t fireproof. These items are stored in various small (plastic) tool boxes and/or old pencil cases the kids used back in elementary school. We don’t have any guns to store right now, so no worries there! If we did – they’d be in the hubs safe (although I can’t always open it – and I’m a better shot than him – which is likely why we don’t bother having one). Thanks for the fun post as always!
I think it’s def. time for you to have your own safe ;)
And feel free to offload any of your coins over to me at any time! Haha… I trade the rare ones to friends, and then leave the rest for my kids to pick from anytime they try something new :) I will make them collectors yet!!
I’d put the most important documents in it.
My safe is pretty boring. I only keep important documents in it, and a backup of my digital photos. I have it solely for keeping stuff safe from a fire.
Nice giveaway!
I would toss the plastic file folder and put in:
*documents – passport, SS card, title to house and car, birth cert/marriage cert
* emergency cash
* EE bonds purchased 20 years ago. Mature at 30 yrs so have to keep them safe for another 10
*credit cards that I don’t use often
* computer back up disks
Thanks.
You can convert the bonds to digital ones if you want! If you’re ever worried about losing them :)
National Safe Day couldn’t come at a more appropriate time for me! Over the weekend I gathered a bunch of “safe stuff,” and wound up putting it in a plastic document protector – don’t judge – that I’m currently keeping in a small filing cabinet – again, don’t judge – for the time being. When I showed it to my husband he said, “We need a fire safe.” Here’s what’s in the document protector/what we’d put in a safe:
-all important docs: marriage certificate, social security cards, birth certificates, husband’s army discharge paperwork, passports, house title, car titles, diplomas
-our work-in-progress legacy binder stuff
-extra spare car and house keys
-a few old family photos
Would also add external hard drive but the document protector was pretty full. :)
It’s time!!! :)
passport, soc sec card, titles, deed to house,precious metals, backup keys for vehicles, list of all online accounts & passwords, estate planning docs (once i have them) maybe a few mementos from family members who’ve passed.
things i would secure in a safe cash , firearms , personal documents
We have 3 safes (we’re not fancy)
Two separate ones for two separate firearms. One for important documents, some random sentimental items and jewelry I’ve received over the years (I pretty much only ever wear my engagement ring so the rest just sits there.
Interestingly, I always have the kids and my passports with me. We live in a border city and frequently visit my mom in Canada.
This’ll rile them up. I think it is truly pathetic that 55% of American homes have guns. No wonder that Americans have way more gun deaths than any other country in the world except Brazil.
I have a safe. In it is:
-gold and silver (an insurance policy against a bank run – an unlikely event, yes, but that is precisely what insurance is for)
-hard drive backups
-keys
-credit cards
-jewelry
-important papers
-family memoribilia
-some cash and some foreign currency
-passports
If you (ie a reader reading this comment) are in the market for a safe be really careful not to pay too little for your safe. With apologies to J Money and Alpha Guardian (and I have not researched Alpha Guardian) when I bought my safe my research led me to Liberty Safes. They have a great bunch of videos showing how they torture test their safes. Pay particular attention to how easy it is to pry many safes, and how poor a job many safes do at fire protection. Here’s a link to their videos:
https://www.libertysafe.com/learning-center.php
There is nothing in it for me for making the recommendation: I’m not a dealer.
A few last comments:
-I would definitely buy the heaviest safe possible. I bought a 600 lb safe because I only had a small appropriate space. If I had more space I would have bought a 1500 lb safe
-if you end up with a smaller safe be sure to lag bolt it to a concrete floor (assuming that’s possible)
-a small “fireproof” box is really no protection at all. Rather than rely on one of those, if buying a larger safe is not possible I’d rent a safety deposit box at a nearby credit union (or bank if you have to).
And truly finally:
-in addition to my safe I also have a safety deposit box. I split hard drive backups between my home safe and my financial institution. A small price to pay for some redundancy.
And truly, truly, finally:
-if I “win” the safe on offer here please pass it on to someone else.
A great topic J Money. Wouldn’t have thought of it but it is a really important part of my financial strategy
Excellent commentary my friend, always appreciate it when you stop by and dump out your thoughts :)
I don’t have a safe but have getting one on my long To Do list. I need to store essential docs (will and trust, medical directives, house and car docs, marriage certificate) and some papers that aren’t essential but I can’t let go of (taxes back to 86!). Passports too. Thanks for the opportunity.
I only have a fireproof box, so a safe would be a nice upgrade! I keep standard documents, of course (passports, birth certs, SS cards, etc.) and my ICE book. I really should put some cash in there, but human laziness knows no bounds. I also have a couple of personal value items, like my grandfather’s Bible from Russia, things like that.
That’s a cool item!!
If I had a safe I would put all my important documents in it my car titles old pictures anything that is important to me loose change that I have in my jar
My safe items:
– passport
– social security card
– the last tan M & M’s I saved before they were discontinued for the blue ones
– my med school & residency “memoirs”…one day I’m writing a book about how AWESOME the experience was ~sarcasm~
– a list of all my junior high crushes
– Some first edition books (I LOVE BOOKS)
– my “grudge” list of people who have wronged me throughout life
– My childhood “treasure” box
P.S. I’m kidding about several of these…but I’ll leave you to ponder which those are…
Oh, I’m not falling for that – ALL OF THEM are the true ones!!! ;)
If I win the safe, I would finally have a set place to store all of our important documents and our emergency fund. We have a small gun safe for safe storing of a small hand gun, but since we have small children, we do not open it unless we are specifically moving the firearm. I would love to have a fire-proof place to store all our important documents and right now you could pick up the box and carry it out of our house if we were robbed. I also have some jewelry that was left to me when my grandmother passed away that I would place in there as well. These are sentimental pieces that I hope to pass along to my daughters some day. I missed out on the jewelry from the other side of my family due to our home being robbed when I was a young girl and my parents did not have a safe, so I understand how it can be pretty traumatic.
Thank you J Money for the opportunity and for reminding me that this should be a goal and we should set aside some money to create a safe space for important documents and items.
Sorry to hear about the robbery :(
What a great giveaway!
I’d keep cash, passports, birth certificate, social security card, car and house papers etc…, tax returns, jewelry and a couple hand guns, and I’m sure several other items I’m forgetting.
We have a small fireproof box but we’re looking to upgrade. We have the standard stuff – passports, birth certificates, car titles, savings bonds, etc. I’ve love to get some gold and silver to store in there! Thanks!!
When I win this safe I will put in the following:
– Cash
– Important documents
– A Father’s Day card from my son years ago
– A broken watch that I intend to repair one day.
Wow, great topic – we have a safe deposit box at the bank. But I think it would be smart to have one at home.
Wills, birth certs, marriage certs, ss cards, titles.
I think I would put some precious sports cards too if I had it at home. Some odd coins. I don’t know. I think I would fill it up pretty good if I had one.
Also, having a stack of cash is a smart move too – I would do that.
Thanks
Thanks for the reminder: we need a safe! Right now everything is at the bank in a safe deposit box where it’s neither fire-safe, nor accessible. Ugh! Passports, marriage certificate, tax returns, bond certificates, car titles, Social Security cards, our will and trust docs… I know there is more but my inventory list is at home!
That is the downside to safety deposit boxes :( Def. helpful to have one at home too…
I’m hoping to win this and convince my grandma to stop trying to hide $10k cash, deposit most, keep a smaller amount in this safe with:
– Flashlight
– her photos of her parents
– Passport
– I’m backing working on getting documents (bank account info *encrypted*, trust, and will) on a USB
– Her wedding photos and engagement ring
We have important docs as you described and my wife also stores DVD backups of all the photos she’s taken off our 3 daughters–we could use a bigger one!
What I would put in our safe:
– Passport, social security info, will
– Hard copies of all account information
– insurance policies
– Mortgage, roof warranty, window warranty info
– Backup hard drive (although heat of a fire would probably cause damage) of documents and photos
– other important records
– Cash
– three days of medications, if possible
Oh man I don’t have a safe so here’s what I think I would put inside.
Passports, birth certificates, marriage license, mortgage deed, ring gifted to my wife, my Michael Jordan golf balls, some cash.
I think I need to watch Bourne Identity again for reference. I would also hope to add $100 in 1’s from winning a giveaway!
I don’t have a safe – would love to win the giveaway! I’d stash all the important documents you listed. Thanks :)
Gun safety and proper care is so important. It’s sad to me how many deaths are related to the fact that guns are not properly secured.
We have two small safes currently in our home. One holds important documents (i.e. title to cars, marriage license, etc.) and the other holds…something that should be secured.
What would I put in this safe?
I would consolidate the items of the two smaller safes into this one. Then I would add other valuables that may or may not be measured in ounces and .999 pure. ;)
Ya know…for a rainy day, or the zombie apocalypse.
*Drool*
Wow, this is amazing – you literally read my mind. I’ve got to find a home for original copies of my will and the legacy binder/instructions for how to steal our identities, plus our passports, a gun, and the extra bottles of vaccine to prevent zombie infections (thank goodness they are shelf stable, lol).
Good call on the vaccines.. ;)
If I had a safe then I’d put these items in:
Passports, birth certificates, insurances, will
Husbands coin collection from his father
Cash
Bonds
My sons medical records, he’s special needs
Thanks for sending out the cool promo.
What would I put in the safe?
100 $1 bills (obviously)
My handgun/ammo (also obviously)
Passports, birth certificates, marriage license, car titles, will/trust, and someday my house deed (2-3 years away from that one!)
My wife’s nicer “special occasion” jewelry
Awesome idea, thanks for the giveaway. My wife and I just got married and moved into an apartment – no safe yet. For now we use one of those fire resistant document bags that we keep in the back of our closet for important docs and records plus any financial items (cash, checks). When we get a safe those will go in there, plus a little jewelry, some of my pocket knives (talk about a hobby that gets expensive quickly if you’re not careful!), and any guns we purchase down the road.
Nothing juicy in our safe, though it’s not big enough to hold much.
– marriage certificate
– titles
– social security cards
– a couple savings bonds
– a couple coins
J$:
Sad to say, but we do not have a safe. Currently our important documents are stored in the file drawer of my home office desk. Here are items we would store.
– Birth Certificates
– Social Security Cards
– Passports
– Car Titles
– Credit Cards we do not frequently use
– Past personal and business tax returns
– Children school photos
– Backup hard drives
– Important account password document
Since it is national safe day, I would also like to share something I just learned about yesterday. Fidelity Investments offers a free digital safe for your important documents and passwords. I thought it was a great idea.
https://www.fidsafe.com/
You do not even need a Fidelity account to create a FidSafe account.
Mr. SoS
Well that’s interesting – can’t say I’ve heard of that before!
Bookmarking to check out more in depth later – thanks man.
I’ve been looking at safes for years now, wanting one and knowing I need it, but have not yet purchased…
I’d put in all the bulleted items you stated above ..plus my cat’s papers and shot records! :) and small treasures of the memory of my Mom.
J, I want a chance at your old safe on wheels. But since you are offering a chance at a brand new one here is my list. I have a very small safe right now so would expand my list.
1. All Life Documents(Logins, Mortgage, SS, Birth, Will, etc)
2. All my silver bullion and coins that are over $30 each
3.Handgun with additional trigger lock… can’t be too safe
4. Expensive jewelry. My watch and wife’s items
5. Passports
6. Spare keys to cars and rental properties.
7. Old family photos.
I would steal your idea of some cold hard cash as well.
How did you know about my old safe???? :)
It is pretty cool… No idea how long safes last fire-proof wise, but it sure is pretty to look at as furniture :)
J, I definitely need a new safe!
What I have in my safe right now is MOLD! Unfortunately. What USED to be in there were all the important documents of life:
Passports
Birth Certificate
SS cards
Marriage License
class rings
Wedding CDs (ruined)
Everything isn’t destroyed thankfully, but I’m pretty sure that stinky wet paper isn’t the goal of the fire safe!
Anyone have tips or pointers to help a girl out? I had moisture packets in there any everything. It’s never even been in a moist part of our house. It’s so strange.
Wha???? just randomly started getting moldy one day??
That is so so strange… sorry to hear that :(
An undisclosed amount of firearms & silver…
And 3 passports.
…Been thinking of lots of safe storage options lately with our first born entering the world!
This is something that’s definitely been on my mind lately. We live in the area of the Tubbs Fire, and with fire season coming again, I’m trying to get prepared in case the worst happens…speaking of not being depressing!! Ha.
Definitely need a place for storing important docs, as well as the ICE binder I’m slowly working on (especially important for my husband since I handle all the finances for our house). Also would be good to store old family photos when we’re not looking at them. Not sure we have valuables per se, but it would help with peace of mind!
I’d obviously fill the safe with marbles then ask my wife to open it and shout, you’ve lost your marbles! (Thinking of Tootles in the movie, Hook) haha
Passport, SS, birth certificates, check book, hard drives, legacy binder, spare keys, treasure map.
Okay, now that is funny :)
I don’t have a safe yet. But when I was looking into getting one. I wanted enough space for my handguns and ammo. I would move my box of important documents into the safe. Emergency cash, pictures and my external hard drive. Also a couple of my old school transformers toys.
What a great giveaway. Passports, birth and marriage certificates, jewelry, car titles, and flash drives with family photos and ammunition because I already have a small safe for my husband and my guns but like to lock the ammo separately.
you all have nailed it w/ your lists.
the only addition, that I would add is the contents of the pulp fiction briefcase…I hear it’s pretty valuable.
also, a spare set of batteries for the keypad. I always hate looking for batteries.
lastly, shout out to the folks who mention humidifier packets. Gotta keep that mold out.
Had to google that pulp fiction briefcase as it’s been a while…
But still no direct answers, huh??!
This is a great idea.
In my safe, I would store
1. Jewelry
2. Important documents such as passports, wills, bank account info, etc
3. Some cash
Thanks for the giveaway!
I would put similar important documents, baby photos of my kids, and my son’s prized home run baseball from his first homer!
That’s cool!!
Hi!
I would put in:
1. Important documents: passports, birth certificates, wills etc.
2. Some cash
3. Spare Keys
4. Old photos
No guns in my house, but I do have important documents and some heirloom jewelry I don’t feel like I’m old enough to rock yet!
I’d put emergency(ATM-less situation) cash
My Passport
Key Documents
My cat when he’s naughty (KIDDING)!
Are you really though? :)
Things I would put in a safe… this one got me thinking. We don’t currently have a safe, just a drawer with my husband and my passports, our 3 kids birth certificates, along with some other things… my teaching certificate and our car titles, maybe a few other things. Important things… most would consider, and up to recently important to us. A month ago, we lost our baby while I was 34 weeks pregnant. So my mind went to things I could never replace… his ashes, his foot imprint they made at the hospital, his hat and blanket – the only clothes I have that touched him before we said goodbye. Then I thought of my computer, it’s where I have stored the only pictures I’ll ever have of him. Your post prompted me to upload the pictures, back them up on a flash drive, things which have been too painful to do until now. I even decided to get some printed. So thank you for the post.
OMG I am so sorry, that is so sad!!!! 34 weeks – wow!!! So crazy what life throws at us, but how strong you must be to overcome such a tragedy… I am so so sorry :(
CO – I am so very sorry for your loss, my first child was born sleeping when I was 36 weeks pregnant…I feel your pain and understand completely what you mean about protecting the few items you have that could never be replaced. Much love to you…
And for J. – knowing what it feels like to lose a child gives you a different perspective on life. I ask every parent before my son is allowed to go to anyone elses home. I have never had anyone get upset with me, and most parents (even gun owners) actually commend me for asking, or tell me that they never even thought about asking before but will going forward.
For the friends whose parents do have guns in the home, I arrange a get-together at our house or at a park or some other place. This way my son still gets to hang out with his friends and I’m not considered totally unreasonable :)
I encourage you to not worry about what kind of reactions you will get and do it for your boys.
Thanks for putting this out there.
Thank you Angie, this makes me feel a lot better already – appreciate you chiming in :)
I’d put in the 100 $1 bills, our passports, our financial information, wills, and our end of life binders. Most likely pictures and other mementos we’d like to keep, just in case the house caught on fire. This would be a wonderful thing as a prize!
definitely all the important papers i have just randomly floating around my house…
It’s been on my list for awhile to purchase a safe!! I would store our wills, and all vital documents — marriage and birth certificates, passports, etc. Would also keep handwritten letters from my husband’s time in boot camp and deployed. Those are irreplaceable to me.
Cute :)
We don’t currently have a safe and I would love to have one to store the following:
Emergency money
Wedding rings
passports
birth certificates
copy of our will
I don’t have a safe yet, but gun safety is a serious issue and I’m glad you mentioned about keeping it locked in a safe. I’d definitely keep my passport, cash and important documents in a safe. Thanks!
We don’t have a safe in the home but we do have a safety deposit box in the bank. If I won, I would put birth certificates, passports, mortgage papers, treasured photos, and then I would put jump drives with backups of all of our digital photos. I would also do a video of the entire house and contents to put on a flash drive for insurance purposes.
Smart on that last one!! Could save you in so many instances!
No safe but also no guns. I do have a wad of cash in my sock drawer. My elderly mother gives me gas money when I go to visit. Usually 5x what I spent in gas. I keep the extra as just in case money for her. I would also keep those all important documents…passports, birth certificates, etc.
I would have:
1) Passports
2) Birth Certificates
3) DD214
4) $500-1000 in cash for well, whatever comes up
5) Wife’s wedding ring paperwork
6) Something of the 9mm persuasion..and some extra ammo
I’m sure there is more, but I’ll see what fits when it arrives at my door!
If I had that perrdy little safe, I would put my one pistol, our weekly cash envelope budget system, passports, external hard drive with pictures, and the “imaginary” legacy binder that we haven’t made yet ;(
keep on rockin’ J. Money!
Oh yeah, paid off vehicle titles. Ha.
Here’s a link to my friend’s ICE Binder (“In Case of Emergency”) in case you haven’t seen before… All you gotta do is fill in the blanks! (although fair warning – there are a $hit ton of blanks haha…):
https://budgetsaresexy.com/in-case-of-emergency-binder/
In our safe, we would put almost the same stuff in it as you:
Our passports, passport cards, birth certificates, marriage certificate, titles to our vehicles, etc.
Our small coin collection
Our family tree/history documents
Our external hard drives
Expensive jewelry
The items in my (imaginary) safe are as transparent to the internet as the contents of the Pulp Fiction briefcase was to the audience. Any safe should be well-concealed in a home; I don’t trust that anyone breaking into my house wouldn’t include the gifted safe-cracker.
We don’t have a safe one!and would LOVE
Our makeshift safe stores passports, birth certificates, our marriage certificate, social security cards, our joint will,and life insurance policies.
Hey J!
We have two safes: one has my firearm (unloaded!–can never be too careful), passports for my wife and I, and some cold hard cash; the other has my ammunition (for the unloaded firearm–two-step verification, lol), other important docs (car titles, birth certs, etc.), checks, more cash, prescription pills, engagement ring, car keys, hard drive back-ups, will docs, etc.
One can never have enough safes. Whomever wins, use it well!
True that!
Good idea separating out the ammo from the gun too.
I have a very small safe that’s crammed with personal papers such as birth certificates, SS cards, certified divorce papers, memory cards with pictures on them. Would love a bigger safe so I could store everything I need to in it!
We have a small handheld safe so those contents would be moved into a better safe –
Passports
Various legal documents
Birth Certificates
I would add a few “prepper” items since there is more room
small handgun
clean water filter
flashlight
flint and steel
basic durable all weather clothing
knives
Just thinking if the house was destroyed from some large natural disaster or other scenario, it would be helpful to have a few items on hand that are likely to be protected (if we find the safe of course) that we would need if we didn’t have help right away.
and I would probably add a few items as we acquire them like
gold
silver
another gun
Very good call on prepper stuff!! Hadn’t even thought about that before, although usually not that much room in safes haha…
We keep our emergency cash, some collectables and our emergency data folder.
That folder has all birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, military discharge paperwork, social security cards, original trust (everyone affected has a copy as well), living wills, Emergency contact info, (if your phone dies or is lost, do you know the phone numbers for all of the people who are important to you?), all bank account info – phone numbers and account numbers. Copies of insurance papers, spare car keys, real estate deeds and vehicle titles. Needless to say, our’s is a little full and we could definitely use a second!
I do not know all the #’s to my loved ones – good point!!
I don’t have much to keep in my safe… YET. Passports would be my number one item and my soon to be winning MEGA MILLIONS ticket, until I get my “team” together (legal and financial advisers).
We currently have a lock box but not nearly as fancy as this Stack-On unit. Pre-nuptial/housing agreements, passports, hunting ammunition for my deer hunting rifle (my one and only firearm) would get transferred to this fireproof beauty! Thanks for the chance to win :)
I’m not going to lie…I’d put all the things my teenagers keep swiping from me. Cell phone chargers, kindle, the expensive chocolate I keep hidden from them (but obviously not well enough), even the overpriced hair conditioner that mysteriously ends up in my daughter’s basement bathroom.
Passports, important documents, emergency cash, blah, blah, blah. I need a safe for those things but right now I mostly want to keep my stuff safe from the little thieves in my house.
You are too much, haha….
So I don’t have either at the moment, but I think a safe deposit box at a bank would be better for my purposes. I live in a very tall apartment building, so even if the safe survived, in case of a fire a small home-safe would probably be lost. I live within a few minute walk of my bank, so I should store my passports, birth certificates, insurance info there.
We used to store our valuables in a nearby bank’s safety deposit box, but that bank closed and now we just have everything in a drawer in our office (!).
Here’s what we would store in the safe:
– passports (old and new, since I was told, as a fed, to keep all of my old passports)
– marriage certificate
– birth certificates
– social security cards
– valuable coins (fortunately only a few of those)
– Savings bonds (my husband got them when he was born and some have still not matured)
– Last year’s tax return, unless there’s room for a few more years’ worth
– Extra cash
Great tips!
I would get important docs like birth certificates and SS cards. I will also keep family items from my mother in law who passed away. She wrote some poems that meant a lot of him. I would also keep photos of family members so well.
That’s awesome you have some of her poems :)
I have a little fireproof safe that holds car deeds, previous tax filings, diplomas and some additional personal paperwork. No wads of cash – but I do have a book that has 50 cent pieces over a number of years that my Grandma put together for me. This thing is stuffed to the gills – I really need to get a second one (even if I don’t get the freebie one)!!
Your grandma has good taste!
We’d mostly use it for irreplaceable sentimental things and important, hard to replace documents (plus those easier but still annoying to replace docs!) Our safe would store photos of my dad, who’s passed, and the few existing childhood photos of my wife and I, as well as her birth certificate, since she was born in another country to military parents. My great gram’s engagement ring would round things out.
Oh man, what couldn’t we use a safe for? I would put all the obvious things…husband’s guns, our precious heirlooms, cash savings, and maybe for fun a dog treat just to see if our smart doggos are actually so smart. ;) thanks for the awesome opportunity!
They’d find it ;)
2 safes, actually. 1 with sentimental items. The other with the important documents and $300 in singles for when ATMs are down in the event of a disaster.
I would put the wills and other important docs from our safety deposit box (save us $25/yr), emergency cash, dogs rabies certs and license info (we have 8 rescue dogs), our guns and ammo, my late mothers diamond ring that I am terrified will get lost or stolen off my hand and backups of files, family photos, etc. Kudos to you for a unique giveaway and thanks!
I don’t currently own one (I know I should) but if I did, I would store:
– A wad of cash for emergencies
– Jewelry
– Back up hard drive
– Old photos (yes, I’m old enough to own these)
– Important docs (passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, trust, etc)
Thank you for posting this important reminder!
I don’t have a safe yet, but here’s what I would put it in: birth certificates, passports, marriage license, car titles, tax paperwork, credit cards I don’t carry in my wallet, mortgage stuff, and some emergency cash.
I would put in:
First and most importantly, a back up hard drive of photos (need to move a copy off site as well).
Birth certificates
Car Titles (I seem to have a problem misplacing them)
A cash stash (just sits in a drawer right now.
A copy of account numbers and passwords
Not sure I have anything valuable that would need to go in.
I’d put my handgun, passport, car titles, marriage license, and some cash in it!
Passports…Credit Cards we don’t use… Birth certificates… Car titles.. new checks (ours don’t come in a box any more!)… and a bosun whistle my late father gave me…
Had to look that whistle up – pretty neat!
Currently keep in a too small safe: passport, birth certs (me and kids), ss cards, marriage certificate, DIVORCE paperwork, legacy journal (not yet full of required information, but does have copies of my insurance policies), high school class ring, EX’S wedding ring, old family photo, the last valentines day card from the ex, and a deed to some property.
In a larger safe, I’d keep a little cash, expand my legacy journal, probably add more family photos, and move most of my old USB drives from my sock drawer to the safe!!!
My mom has settled on getting my partner “boring but practical” gifts for Christmas (and he likes that setup!). One of them was a fireproof lockbox– nothing this big or fancy!– for the two of us.
When we moved in I stashed all the essentials:
Birth certificates
Social security cards
Passports
Our copy of the lease
Then it turned out I had to request a copy of my car title to register it here (in my old state, you didn’t hold the title until you paid off your car), so I did, and after my car was registered I got the copy of the title back. Into the box it went.
Hm, I should probably write down the login info for the bills I pay and stash it in there, ICE binder-style.
(Partner’s reaction to receiving the box: “See, I didn’t know I needed that. I guess I never thought about ‘What if my house burned down?’ beyond ‘That would suck.'” I worry, he doesn’t worry. Works well having one of each.)
Your mom is my favorite person of the day :)
I currently just store my passport and files in a nice manila folder on the top of my highest closet shelf. Is it safe – hell no, but like J. Money, I just bought a house and have been meaning to get, at the least, a fireproof bag for the minimal papers I have to keep secure.
If I had such a swanky safe (even if I do not win – thank you Alpha Guardian for this sick opportunity) the contents would still be bare, but consist of the following:
-Passport, checks, and all the other papers I store away (warranties, receipts, and legal stuff)
-Cold hard cash is king, so I’d throw in some extra pennies to go with that HUNDO
-All my extra checkbooks (did not think about securing those, but it’s better to be SAFE than sorry)
Congrats on the new house!
Safes are awesome! We keep all of the following in ours:
-Important papers: will, life insurance info, birth certificates, ss cards, deed to our home, etc.
-Small amount of cash for just in case.
-CDs and flashdrive backups of important family photos.
-My husband’s wedding band (He works with his hands. Once he got his ring caught on a piece of metal and was almost minus a finger. Luckily both the finger and the ring were saved with a little repair. Now we keep it in the safe and he wears it on special occasions.)
Ack – scary!
Hi J. Money, thanks for the opportunity to enter this contest!
My husband and I do not have a safe, and therefore, could really use one! It’s been on our wish list for a while lol. We’d use it to store the usuals (passports, marriage and birth certificates, car titles, etc.). BUT I would also throw in the ownership papers for my horses and important documents from my husband’s military service. He is getting out in a couple years and we are looking to relocate back to the VA/MD area!
Cool! We’ll then be neighbors! :)
I would put the $100 prize plus important documents: passport, will, tax returns in my safe. Thanks for the contest.
I would store our documents:
– Passports
– Birth Certificates
– SSN Cards
– Insurance Papers
– Medical Records
– Etc.
And a few other items
– Loose Cash
– Dearly important mementos from people no longer with me :(
My Current safe is empty because I am having part of it rekeyed. It was my grandparents safe, and while we know the combination for the out side, the smaller interior part we lost the key when we moved. We already know there is nothing in the smaller part. Once we get it back, we will store copies of birth certificates and some other important paper work and maybe some of my more expensive coins.
Or maybe I could go hardcore like my grandpa did and get a nice section of PVC pipe and bury some gold in the crawl space… no really he did that.
DO ITT!!!!!!! :)
coin collection
Oh man, you’ve convinced me: We need a safe! Right now? Well we have a metal lockable container with birth certificates, passport, old coins, a few pictures and old jewelry items. In case of theft, the key is safely….taped to the bottom. :o In case of fire, …. well hopefully it’s still under the bed. But if the house catches I’ll be too busy trying to get the family out than to grab the box. We definitely need a safe. I wish they weren’t so expensive though :/
Taped to the bottom??!! Hahaha… would make for a lucky day for that robber! :)
Important documents…
Account username and passwords…
External hard drive with pics and files..
$1000.00 cold hard cash….
(Thanks to you), my small but growing coin collection.
Heyyy, that’s cool! What types of coins do you find yourself enjoying collecting so far? :)
Primarily, important documents for my wife, our kids, and myself! (passports, birth certificates, car title.)
Additional documents and general login details for our major accounts.
Our wills.
A portable hard drive containing back ups of major files (financial and photos.)
A couple of credit cards which we don’t use daily.
Ideally a wad of cash but I’m not quite in a position to have that laying around at the moment. (I’ve actually been considering purchasing a safe for all of the above though it isn’t quite in the budget yet so I’m loving this contest idea!) ;)
I would primarily store my family’s important documents, move my handgun from my current location, and also my cryptocurrency wallet! Thanks!!
What I’d put in-
-birth certificates, marriage certificate (I need to find BOTH my birth cert and the marriage cert to renew my drivers license)
– all of the jewelry I inherited from my mom that I wear infrequently
– inherited coins we haven’t gotten around to selling yet
– car titles
and I’m sure there’s probably more :)
Here’s an article that will help you with those inherited coins! :)
https://budgetsaresexy.com/how-to-sell-your-inherited-coin-collection-guide/
Happy to help you as well anytime – just shoot me a note!
We keep the basics, passport, important docs: health directives, tax docs etc, emergency cash, back up drives, checkbooks. Memories like my childhood bank account book that my grandpa opened for me! Need room for more so hope I win…
Passports, Birth Certificates, assorted paperwork and NUNYA ;-)
Thanks, Bro!
Okay, you got me on this one. I’m game. LOL We keep the usual stuff, passports, birth certificates, Social Security Cards, Insurance Policies, and Mortgage Deeds in our safe. One of the ‘challenges’ we face, though, is what to do with a safe when we have two homes. (We winter in one and summer in the other.) So far we’ve just left it at our summer home. BUT . . . if we had TWO safes we could have one both places! ;) Just sayin’ . . . LOL
We don’t have one, it’s on my to do list for the year. I would put our legacy binder in it, insurance policies, birth and marriage certificates, titles, and hard drives with kid photos. And some cash. Super boring, but life would be way too exciting if those things were to go missing.
I REALLY want a safe for my family’s passports, SS cards, birth certificates, backup cash, and insurance info. I had one of those small lockboxes but it’s not big enough and is totally steal-able, so I want a real safe!
I don’t have a safe, but it would probably be a good idea to have something fireproof to store important documents in. I can be as “combustion conscious” as possible, but I live in a multi-unit complex and who knows what the other residents are cookin’. I hear replacing some docs can be a time consuming task.
There’s a credit card I use only for “auto pay” bills that could go in there. I’d probably keep the collectibles out though. What’s the point of having Daredevil #1 or a Jim Brown rookie card if you can’t appreciate them daily?
Amen on that!
So I’ve got a safe that I lost the key to — woops! Got it about 10 years ago after graduating college and my parents suggested that I get one – I doubt there is anything of importance in there. Fast forward 10 years and I’ve got a family so here is what I would put in a safe if I had one:
–the USB that contains our ICE binder (in case of emergency)
–birth certificates
–SS cards
–A letter to my daughter
–a will
Ashley,
You shouldn’t keep wills locked up. If something were to happen they need to be readily accessible. You should give a copy to someone important in you life to keep.
Mike S.
Or you can give the password/key to the lock to whoever needs it as well!
But now I REALLY want to see what’s stashed in your old one! Haha…. I bet you can take it to a lock specialist to open for you?!
My ideas repeat what many have already said:
– Passports, social security info, marriage info, birth certificates
– Life insurance policies
– Vehicle and home insurance policies
– Vehicle titles (especially when they have the liens released !!!)
– Mortgage, roof warranty, window warranty info
– Any additional important records
(No cash or guns at this time)
I have a very small safe, and keep the usual stuff in there: important legal documents and some cash for emergencies (vital, since I live in earthquake country!)
What a great item, would love to win. I would keep family/biz/legal docs in it, at least a hundred dollars ;) , bank checks, jewelry and whatever comes to mind when I have the safe in my home.
J,
Perfect timing on the safe give away. Would love to win as we are about to see about getting on. Right now we keep everything at the bank in a safe deposit box, but it is getting too pricey.
What we keep in there is the following:
Important papers: birth certificates, marriage certificate, DD-214’s and any other papers we think should be kept around.
Old coins, collected them with my dad as a child, don’t do it any more and only have a couple that we keep ($5 gold piece from my grandmother)
Old jewelry or things my wife doesn’t wear that often.
a few old US savings bonds that still get 4+ % interest.
Thanks,
Mike
Good job grandmother with that $5 gold piece! They don’t make ’em like that anymore! :)
Our current safe is more about fire proof then security. I have the 2 factor identification tokens for some accounts, titles to cars, house deed, passports, insurance policies, and some pics. It’s honestly bursting at the seams.
we don’t have a safe but if we did, i would put passports, birth certificates, social security cards, and important house documents in there. thanks for the giveaway!!!
Here’s what would make the cut for the items to put in our safe:
Birth and wedding certificates, passports, house deed and purchase information, car titles, vaccination records, summary of my son’s treatments for leukemia, past 7 years of federal tax reports, most recent quarterly statements for our 403(b) and IRA accounts.
Odds and ends of jewelry I don’t often wear, the first card my husband sent me, a piece of lace from my wedding dress, my son’s special blanket and my daughter’s special stuffed lamb (they are 22 & 19 now!).
Family photos, plus a flash drive with additional photos, a few precious pieces of art and writing from my children when they were younger.
Several embarrassing childhood and teenage pictures which people are free to view after I’m gone!
Ahhhh we want to see them NOW, please! ;)
But cute on the kids old blanket and lamb! Hadn’t ever thought of storing things like that before…
The not sexy: vital records (birth certificates, passports, SSN cards, marriage certificate, etc.)
The sexy: coins given as gifts by grandparents, savings bonds given to kids when they were born, things like that. And, drumroll . . . a few (tasteful) nude photos from when I was in my early 20s. As I approach 50, those photos are priceless!
Heyo!!!!
I would take all the important documents most people mentioned above out of my broken safe which no longer locks and add to the $100 in the new safe. I’m hoping to win so I don’t have to buy a new one because I’m trying to be thrifty(cheap). But if I don’t win then I will definitely need to loosen the wallet and invest in a new one.
I’d definitely store my external hard drive, passport, and some sentimental photos of my grandparents. A filing system of some kind with my important papers as well! :)
I have a safe and keep all my important documents and bank stuff in there…nothing sexy! Lol!
Thanks for the giveaway!!!
I have a small probably super cheap quality and price save bolted in at home.
I keep:
Passports
Checkbooks
deed for house/truck
About $1000 cash, usually if I have a $100 I add it in there.
Not sure how fire or waterproof this thing is, but it is up off ground so maybe better than nothing. Would really love an upgrade to one I trust even more.
If I had this larger one then more paperwork would go in, and I would promise I would backup photos etc onto at least one drive and store in here.
No safe, but would use it for pictures, thumb drive back up and government docs – passports, birth certificates, etc.
We had a small safe, but one of the hinges rusted and the door fell off. I need to get a new one soon. We put all our important document in there. Not much room for anything else in our old safe. The next one needs to be bigger.
We’ve talked about getting a safe, but don’t have one. We’d put:
-important documents (birth certificates, etc).
-maybe jewelry
-passports?
Thanks for hosting the giveaway!
Great topic today! (as always :))
I don’t have a safe yet, and I don’t have too many things that I would consider safe-worthy, but even if you have one thing it’s worth it, right?
I would put in the normal stuff, passport, ssc, birth certificate. I have a second job waitressing, so I often have some extra cash. I like to keep about $1000 at home just in case ;)
I have some very special letters from my grandparents that I would like to keep in a safe, and a sock from when my nephew was a tiny tiny baby.
I liked your idea about putting in flash drives with the family photos. I would also keep an inventory of the belongings in my home on a flash drive, along with some video footage of the house with the belongings I have in there. It’s SO important to have an updated home inventory in case disaster strikes.
Thanks for doing this J-Money!
You’re right on that inventory stuff!!
Thanks for participating! And glad you’re enjoying the articles! :)
We have a small lockbox that we keep our passports, extra credit cards, social security cards, and some cash in. However, it’s not fireproof. Once I upgrade to something nice like this, I’ll be adding other important documents, our wedding album, and data disks/drives. I’m wondering myself what else will make it in there… Thanks J$!
I keep the locks from my kids’ first haircuts. Plus some financial stuff ;( Why is it tradition to keep baby hair anyway? I find it super weird but I’ve been told it’s good luck so we’ve got it locked away. Is that the weirdest thing anyone said?
It’s up there, haha…
I’d store documents and backup codes for 2FA. And cool idea with daughter’s choice item :)
What I would put in it:
– No guns (cause I don’t have any)
– Trust and Will docs
– Birth certificates and social security cards for myself, my wife, and my four kids
– Cash
– My collection of pre-1935 (legit) silver dollars that I inherited from my great uncle.
Smart uncle!!
Things in my small safe: birth certificate, SS card, passport. My Nana’s diamond ring and wedding band, an emerald & diamond ring, a watch, small amount of cash – maybe $200, a couple of $2 bills, notary public seal, one of my grandfather’s arrowheads, and a pad of his company timesheets (they are old but cool to look at). If I had a bigger safe there would be more in it for sure!
I want to see a pic of those timesheets!! :)
Emerald ring sounds pretty cool too – do you ever wear it?
Hey J Money!
I keep some random stuff in my safe. They are:
old and new passports
a couple old passport photos I haven’t used
some of my wife’s jewelry
extra credit cards I don’t use daily
airline membership cards
deeds to my and my wife’s car
also, for a little while I kept an old teddy bear I kept from my childhood (yes my wife made fun of me for it)
Teddy bears are manly, I don’t care what anybody says… ;)
Mine holds important documents for both my life and the grown kids. When they finally get a permanent place I will gift them with their important stuff. Guns, $1000 cash. Like you, I’m preparing for the zombie apocalypse
Howdy J Money! My husband and I currently utilize our WWII-era steel file cabinet with a combination lock to store all our valuables and important stuff since. Yes, we know that isn’t the ‘safest’ method of storage, but we could also both hide in it with our dogs in the event of a zombie apocalypse! It contains:
Our passports, tax returns, a small collection of silver dollars, a collection of comic books we believe might be worth some money someday :), a checkbook that only sees the light of day when we have to pay our taxes, our respective legal documents, a small stash of cash, my parents’ wills & trusts, backup drives, credit cards we never use, birth/wedding certificates, and a lot of junk that really doesn’t need to be locked up!
Hmmm…. I think we really need a safe!
That is pretty cool you all can hide in it though ;)
Maybe you can cut out a piece of the wall behind it and stash a safe in it kinda like a hidden compartment!! Then you get best of both worlds! Haha…
We have our birth certificates, SS cards, and passports in a fire safe.
I would put our ICE/Legacy Binder in there… Right after I write it… Which I’ve been meaning to do for months!
Sounds like a good June Mission to me :)
Cool gift – I would use it to store wills and birth certificates and the external drive backing up computer files. It would be a great place to store a list of passwords as well. And last by not less, having much needed cash for the zombie apocalypse sounds like a great plan
We have a firebox — not sure if that counts as a safe but that’s what my husband calls it. He says I was “snappy” when asking him what was in it so he won’t tell me what’s in there right now haha Be back after cooling off period….
HAH! Maybe he’s hiding presents for you or something in there ;)
Update: unfortunately not presents :( His passport, birth certificate, car deed, etc. are in there. I have a separate special spot for all my papers, so my biggest takeaway is that it doesn’t make sense for us to have important stuff in two different places — gotta consolidate!
money, documents, photos, and bricks to weigh it down a bit more. Might as well give any burglars a workout.
I like the way you think.
I’d put my passport and other documents in the safe. I also have an old red seal $5 bill. It would be in there.
Those are cool looking :)
Cash (because ATM’s fail when you need it most)
Gold/Silver
Passports, Birth, Marriage, SS Cards
And yes, a Glock 26, unloaded with a magazine next to it….
I would use the safe for personal items I would not want anyone to find should anything happen to me!
I would share the safe unlock code with 1-2 people!
Super Secret! I could use the safe, as I’ve never had one!
Personal documents,old family pictures, all my computer back drives and savings
YES! I was literally searching reviews to replace our safe last night! It is primarily used for my “master binder of everything” that includes our wills, passports, birth certificates, titles and a breakdown of anything anyone could possibly need to know if and when I pass. It also has some heirloom jewelry and pocket watches for my children. Last year I inherited a revolver from my grandfather, but now my safe won’t easily close and we need something bigger. Yikes!
I have a small fireproof safe at home where we keep valuable documents, passports, Social Security, etc. BUT this box is pretty much exclusively propped open because otherwise it gets kind of mildewy inside, so it’s less than useful lol.
Hmmm…lets see…we use our big gun safe for everything so…
guns
all important papers – BC, SSC, passports, etc
Titles to cars, boat, trailers, etc, plus one extra set of keys to each
Money to purchase our retirement house
Business binders (one for each store and our LLC)
I know there is more, but that is all I can remember.
We have guns we inherited and I’d like to put them in there because we have grandchildren.
Wow, I would love to have a safe. Had one before, but my ex bought it and kept it. If I could get one again I would use it for:
Jump Drives and hard drives from my three old laptops with thousands of pictures/videos of my kids and memories
Personal Papers for sure
Hidden cash in the house (you know in case of that zombie thingy you talk about, will we really need cash though, should put some food in there huh?)
Probably Boo Doll (you know, Monsters Inc.), she was impossible to get 20 years ago, but we got one!!
Hope I win, could definitely use that safe!!! Thanks!
I do like the idea of stashing away some food just in case :)
I’d put our birth certificates, marriage license, SS cards, vehicle titles, mortgage documents, savings bonds, and some cash in a safe.
passport because I lose them.
Death certificate for my parents *because my sibs lose them
my birth certificate because a new one requires me to go back to my hometown…with a parent. yeah.
trust paperwork for my brother, because he can’t be trusted.
cash that, if it disappears, will likely indicate that I have as well.
The gross collection of baby teeth my parents kept and no one wants, but no one will throw away.
my stupid law degree as an artifact of humans making stupid financial decisions
my paid off mortgage deed, as an artifact that aforementioned stupid decisions can be somewhat corrected with ten years of Ramen noodles.
What little jewelry I have and never wear. Does it make anyone else feel like they are wearing handcuffs?
a stone pulley, corn shucker, and another weird antique from the family farm.
A copy of the muppets episode with Carol Burnett, because even if no one wants to remember that about me, they must.
Haha…. one of the best things I’ve read today :)
Sorry about the lack of punctuation above, folks. Voice recognition hit “send” before I could edit, and can’t figure out how to edit it afterward.
I would put my passport, social security card, birth certificate, and any other important documents that I’ve been keeping at the “Safe of Mom and Dad’s House”, since I recently moved out to an apartment in a city and feel like everything is safer in their house since they’re not moving all the time. With a safe I would finally feel like my stuff is more secure in my own apartment.
All the usual stuff, e.g. passports, important papers, etc. I need to ask my husband about his baseball cards, could be worth something more than sentimental value.
It’s a small one we have that fits file folders in. We’ve got important documents—birth certificates, immunization records, car documents, home documents, divorce paperwork etc.
My daughter’s savings bonds and I’ve got a bag of silver coins. My father owned a carryout and he would pilfer through coins that customers paid with and pluck out any silver. Also have some Mint sets that my grandparents would give to my parents as a gift each year at Christmas.
Some old photographs of my family. Mostly my grandparents. Some of their wedding. He was a B-24 pilot in WWII who piloted 35 missions over Europe so I have some of him, some of my father. I’ve also got a replica of Ralphie’s Distinguished Flying Cross medal he received within the last decade.
My father passed away so I have a card he’d written in in there with his handwriting.
Recently deposited some cash I’d been hoarding in there. Cash was from a 50/50 drawing I’d won and we put it in our Ireland graduation trip saving account.
Good stuff now that i think about it!
Keep the great posts going!
Yeah! That would be a fun safe to go through for sure :) Love that your father slipped out all those silver coins!! You should check them one day and see if there are any rarities in there! :)
I don’t own a safe but if I had one I’d store family photos, important legal papers such as birth certificate, car title, income tax forms, S.S. card, etc. Also, $100 to $200 because cash CAN come in handy.
I don’t own a safe, but it’s on my list of things to get. I want a place to store things like birth certificates, social security cards, marriage license, living wills, etc.
I’d also put a few collectibles that I should probably just sell and invest the proceeds, but can’t seem to get rid of, like a couple of baseball cards and silver dollars.
I’ll help you when you’re ready to sell those silver dollars ;)
My husband and I were gifted a small safe for a wedding present (not on the registry… but a great idea!!!), but it’s too small to do anything with. :( It would hold a few bills, at most, but not passports or any other important documents, so I haven’t really done anything with it. I would LOVE a safe, as all of our important documents right now are in the big file cabinet with all the other not as important, but still have to keep, paperwork, which I feel might be the first thing to catch fire, as paper is pretty flammable!
Anyways, I would probably put passports, marriage certs, and cash in there. And I know hubby would put a hard drive with pictures on there, as he does photography (mainly of our travels) and he would HATE to lose all those precious memories – as would I!
What a great idea for a giveaway, J!
Excellent wedding gift idea!! I might have to remember that one :)
We don’t have a safe yet but it would be fantastic for our passports, car titles, house titles, marriage certificate, birth certificates, and our emergency cash. :-)
If I win the safe I’d put these items in it: passports, social security cards, birth certificates, and our inherited hand guns. I’ve never thought about putting computer back ups in a safer spot but now I might!
I have a fireproof box. Not much of a safe. Contains car titles, Heath proxies, birth certificates, passports(vacation!!!). Reading all the comments gives me some more thoughts on what I should be storing in a safe. Like Some extra cash, the old pennies my grandpa gave me, engagement ring no longer wearing.
Yeah – lots of great ideas being passed around here :)
I’d put some emergency $ in it and also my car title. –also legal documents–
I would prob stash my godless coins, my sweet dogs collar (he passed earlier this year), my husband’s favorite beat up tshirt and maybe insurance docs/passports?
Yeah!
What are Godless coins? Haha…
Thanks for the reminder on gun safety. Definitely something to keep in mind as my kids get to the age where they will be visiting friends’ houses. We don’t yet have a safe. Definitely would store our trust and identification documents in there, and the spare key my Dad gave me for his safe!
I thought of 1 more thing to add to what I said earlier.
In January, I bout about $250 worth of postage stamps, before the price of Forever stamps went up. I would put the bulk of the stamps in the safe.
Very smart to bulk up!!
I forgot to add this earlier.
I’d also put in my most treasured photos.
Nothing exciting here… Similar to you. Emergency cash, birth certificates, ss cards, and some miscellaneous, boring paperwork. Thanks J!
Glad you said external hard drive! I should probably put ours in there too since it does have all our backup photos and such. Thanks for the tip!
A few hundred in cash, adoption papers for four of our children, other important documents, jump drive with photos, and a couple of small family heirlooms will be stored in this safe if we win it.
We have the box my engagement ring came in….
We have a large safe in our credit union for over 10+ years and have always thought of getting a safe for the home instead. This post seems to be pushing us there…since whenever we need something from the safe, it is always on the weekend, when the banks and CU are closed (sigh).
– Family – Passports, birth certificates, home purchase papers, car ownership papers, school and university transcripts, wills
– Gold and Silver Jewelry (from our wedding in India) – necklaces, bangles, rings, earrings, toe rings, silver key chain that shows the wife is the BIG BOSS in the family (she is!)
– USB Hard drives with wills, pictures, taxes, documents (that is updated every 6 months)
– No cash (since it is in the bank :))
that is the hard part about keeping them at banks :( the hours can get tricky…
very smart to update all that info every 6 months though!! impressive!
*** GIVEAWAY NOW OVER! ***
Thanks for participating everyone!!
The lucky winner of the Stack-On safe is…. Sarah D. Congrats!! Will be reaching out to you shortly to get your info :) And for everyone else, I hope you’ll still consider picking one up to safeguard all your treasures over there!! And your firearms!