5 Tips to Securing your Documents on a Budget

It is easy to acquire a lot of things with significance for all the years that you have lived. Perhaps you are a student who likes to keep every single exam paper tuck away in the hopes of using them for a future comprehensive examination. Perhaps you are a traveler who has collected and kept every travel map you can get your hands on. Maybe you are a writer who has never found the courage to throw away every first draft of your novels. Or maybe you are just like every other person on this earth with unexplainable hoarding tendencies for things that are valuable or not valuable to some people.  For whatever it is, there is no doubt that we need to find a way to keep these items safe and secure.

Some people store their important documents at home while others use secure record storage centers near their area. Here are five tips that you can do to make your document storage needs in check money-wise.

1.   Keep a central location to store all your important documents. A single location to store all your important documents is very important. You don’t want the hassle of trying to look for your passport and bank certificates in more than one location especially if you are in a hurry. If you have a central place to keep your documents, it makes it easier to track them and inspect if anything is missing and that you need to acquire another original copy.

2.   Use waterproof and dust-resistant plastic slips. It’s not totally neurotic but buying a waterproof container or a box might just save you a lot of stress during the worst times. You can put your documents on plastic slips to keep it protected from accidental scrapes or spilled water. A great tip that has been passed on to me by my parents is to store important documents on a ready-to-go and secure bag. In case of an emergency, it is easy to lift and pick up the bag without worrying about losing any important documents.

3.   Make digital copies. We need to have both original and digital copies of important documents like birth certificate, marriage license, proof of ownership and other paper trails that prove our identities. These are documents with legal importance and usually, take time and money to acquire. Having a digital copy makes it easy to print one to use for non-critical application without having to retrieve out the original copy every time. A lot of agencies nowadays will accept an online application and have digital copies makes everything convenient and less expensive.

4.   Store only the really important documents. If you want to store important official papers at a document storage facility, you have to be cautious about what to keep otherwise you will find yourself paying more than you intend to. Only keep hard copies of confidential documents like wills, tax returns, birth certificate, social security cards, traveler’s checks and insurance papers. You can exclude receipts, bills, and memos

5.   Declutter the storage regularly. Keeping an inventory of your documents makes sense. Go through your documents and see if anything is outdated and no longer needed. Remove it and replace with the most recent document immediately. Not only do you save space but you can also save time and money reproducing a document at the last minute.

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