If there was a natural disaster or heaven forbid a break in to your home, do you have inventory of everything in your home?
Here are some ideas of how to take inventory of your home:
- Go through each room if you forget what you have. You can’t go off memory. This inventory is also helpful for homeowners property insurance.
- Go room to room: The easiest way is to take your phone and take pictures of the sentimental items and furnishings. Write the items down and take pictures.
- Later you can type information into a word document and save on a cloud based solution and/or copy it into a fire proof safe. Don’t forget to note where you stored the pictures.
- Tackle each room of your apartment or home and label the room it was stored in. Make sure if you have collections, you note the number of pieces, manufacturer, size, color, material used and so forth.
- I wouldn’t worry about everyday dishes and glassware. It can be replaced. Unless it is super special to you.
- Don’t forget the basement/garage/storage unit or shed.
- This task will take some time.
- Recommendation: Take index cards and fold them lengthwise. Write on the card with a sharpie what the objects are before taking a picture. They can then be easily identified in the photo.
- While you are going through items that you no longer want or need, it is a good time to re-purpose or purge.
- Don’t forget lamps, artwork, pottery, book collections, exercise equipment, and the hidden items in your china cabinet or closets.
- And of course all of your important “vital life documents” should be digitized and you should store a hard copy in a fire proof safe or file cabinet.