Last week, you should have printed off the checklist, pg 3 (from your emergency binder download), and marked what you can get ready, need copies of, and what you can keep a digital file of.  You should have ready:

• a pile of documents ready to go into your binder
• another pile of documents ready to copy (if not, do that THIS week or next!)
• an electronic storage device
• binder and sheet protectors
• the whole emergency binder printable printed out

Let’s get started with this week… it’s all about the digital stuff.

In case you missed it, you can sign up and download your FREE Emergency Binder Printable HERE. 

How to Build your Emergency Binder Cont…

6. Take photos

It’s time to grab your phone, or camera, and start taking photos of everything in your house.  Here are some tips:

• Start with one room at a time
• Kitchen- open up a cabinet or drawer, and take a photo of everything in that cabinet or drawer (if there is stuff hidden behind items, try to slide stuff around so you can see it all).  Also, be sure to take photos of all appliances.
• Dining Room- photo of your table and chairs, decorations, and anything else in there.
• Bathrooms- be sure to get photos of the upgraded vanities, toilets, showers, etc.
• Bedrooms- include all of your furniture.  We store tons under our beds, so be sure to photograph what’s in those bins.
• Closets and hallways- the best way is to snap one or two photos of all of the clothing hanging up, and then another of everything on the shelves or floor.
• Take photos of all the picture frames in your house (esp. if it’s published work).
• Also, you’ll want to include all your fans and light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.
• Photos of what the floor is (hardwood, carpet, rugs, etc.) is a good idea.
• If you have bins of clothing as I do, take a photo of all the bins.
• Grab photos of all the kid’s toys- this doesn’t have to be individually but use one photo to cover as many toys as possible.
• Ultimately you’ll want to head outside- take photos of all the play toys, gardening buckets/planters, playground, lawn equipment, etc.
• Take 4 photos of the outside of your house (one from each side), and one of the roof if possible.
• Head into the garage and/or shed.  Take photos of everything in there.
• Snap pictures of the interior/exterior of your vehicles.

Go PAPER FREE and grab your digital binder here.  

Try to take the least amount of photos as possible to save space on your computer.  This sounds like a lot of time, but it will really only take 30 min or less.  Be quite general with the photos.  You want to include EVERYTHING, and you can also have many items in the photo at a time.

7. Download and Organize the Photos

Now, it’s time to organize them.  This shouldn’t take long since you went room by room.  So, first, you need to download all the photos to your computer, and put them onto your Emergency Binder Storage Device.  The best way to organize photos is to…

1. Have a file labeled “photos”.
2. Create a file inside that for “possessions”.
3. Create more folders inside that are labeled for each room.
4. Now, drag all your kitchen folders into the kitchen file, bathroom photos into the bathroom file, and so forth until you’ve organized each of them.
5. If you want to create a specific folder for each family member, that might be a good idea too.  You can update the photos by adding toys from birthdays and Christmas into each “personal” folder.
6. Create a “family” photo folder and add in some recent pictures of your family.

8.  Finish filling out your family contact page

Be sure to email/text/call those friends and family members you are still waiting on for their address.

9. Fill out all child and adult ID kits

You can download the Adult ID Kit HERE and the Child ID Kit HERE.  These are nice and quick to hand to the cops in case of an emergency (thanks Misty from Simple Family Preparedness!)

Go PAPER FREE and grab your digital binder here.  

10. Make files for your “D” Downloads checklist

When you whet over your checklist, you placed a “D” by the items you will be making a digital file of.  A few examples may be your tax returns, credit reports, etc.  It’s time to create a file in your Emergency Binder Storage Device for those documents.  It’s up to you how you label them (finances, tax returns, etc).  Start downloading all of those onto your device for this step.

In Conclusion:

You’ve got your supplies and everything organized to start,.  This week we’ve gotten most of the digital photos and files in place.  Stay tuned, next week we’ll get down to the grind of filling out the PDF names, numbers, and other info for all of your information.

Click to read next steps

What are you stuck on this week?  Comment Below.

Further Reading:

Why you need an emergency binder

Step 1 Building your Emergency Binder

If you liked this post, please let us know by leaving a comment below and clicking those share buttons to tell your friends. As always, we appreciate you taking a minute of your time to spread the word about preparedness.

This post contains affiliate links.  Read my affiliate link disclosure here

Go PAPER FREE and grab your digital binder here.