Ok, guys, it’s time to get down to the grind. This week’s step in building your emergency binder is starting to fill out all the paperwork. FREEZE! Don’t get overwhelmed and walk away. I’m going to take you through it step by step, so it’s not overwhelming.
First things first… If you have NOT already made copies of your documents, YOU NEED TO DO THAT THIS WEEK! Next week, we’ll be putting the whole binder together, and you’ll need those copies.
The previous 2 weeks we organized all the documents you’ll need and took care of photos and personal property photos. Be sure to read about those (look for the links at the bottom of this post) and catch up, if you haven’t made it this far.
If you’re just joining us, sign up and download your FREE Emergency Binder Printable HERE.
How to build your Emergency Binder cont…
As I mentioned above, this week is starting to fill in your pages with your written (or typed) information. Let’s get started.
11. Start with the emergency information
Fill out:
- Evacuation checklist- Here is a great read for more info about how to be ready for an evacuation.
- Family meeting spots
- Emergency numbers- most of this information you should be able to find local numbers from the internet
- Family contact- hopefully, you’ve been able to get most of this information from the past few weeks.
SAVE ON PAPER Get Your Digital Binder Here
12. Personal Information
Most of this information, you should be able to recall or have on hand. Fill out:
- a Personal Information page for EACH member of your family. There are 2 pages to this, so be sure to make a copy and fill out BOTH for each member.
- Download your personal ID kit (Adult or Child) (one for each member) and complete it.
- Website Passwords- each website you log in to will need to be entered here, FOR EACH MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY. I recommend giving them a printed-out copy of this sheet to keep by their computer for a week, and they can fill it out as they go. These days it’s so easy to have the computer remember the password, and if you’re anything like me, you tend to forget those. The Website Passwords page will help you remember, or allow you to log on to other computers in times of emergencies.
- Health Insurance and Providers- typically you’ll only need one of these filled out per family member
13. Financial Information
This one may take some time, but hopefully, as you gathered your documents in week 1, it will just be a matter of transferring the information. Fill out:
- Financial Accounts- ALL of your accounts from checking/savings, to credit cards, 401K, IRA, and any other financial accounts you may have.
- Other Accounts Payable- These include utilities, phone, loans, mortgage, … any other accounts that you pay money towards during the year
- Credit Report- On this worksheet, I provided you a way to review your credit report 3 times a year for free. 2 out of the 3 you are able to save a PDF version, but for one of them you will need to print out a hard copy of.
14. Personal Property
This section should be easy, since week 2, we did most of the work. Photos of your belongings and valuables should already be on your Emergency Binder Storage Device. Fill out:
SAVE ON PAPER Get Your Digital Binder Here
- Home Information- mortgage/rental company and insurance information. You will also want to list (if you own your home) any major home improvements. This will help you when you sell your house in the future, and sometimes insurance asks questions about those.
- Vehicle Information- identifying qualities of the vehicle, also including insurance, and loan/lease or title information
- Keep a date of any major repairs, accidents, or tickets for reference… again, the insurance company may ask you for these.
- Other Personal Property- keep a running list of your valuables (guns, jewelry, etc.)
15. Make copies of everything
If you haven’t already made copies of the important documents you need to… now is the time to do that. Schedule a time in the next day or two, and make copies of ALL the important documents. The Emergency Binder Checklist is on page 3 of your download, so be sure to look and see what you need copies of.
In conclusion
Next week, we are putting it all together AND going over how to keep everything updated! It’s not as scary as you think, I promise! Stay tuned.
What are you stuck on this week? Comment below.
Further Reading:
Why do I need an Emergency Binder?
How to Build your Emergency binder Step 1
How to Build your Emergency binder Step 2
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Thanks for reading!
3 thoughts on “How to Build an Emergency Binder- Step 3”
I signed up to get the free binder, put in my email and submitted. But I’ve never received it. Checked my spam, not there
Sorry, that’s so frustrating! I just sent a copy over via email.
I sent the email with the free PDF attached May 8th, around 5 pm. May 4th, 24 hours later, I received a “delivery incomplete” stating: “The response was:
The user you are trying to contact is receiving mail at a rate that prevents additional messages from being delivered. Please resend your message at a later time. If the user is able to receive mail at that time, your message will be delivered.” Do you have a different email address you can email me from and I can send it to you?