Safety Deposit Box

[Kaikou]

Do you guys keep birth certificates and passports or ss cards in a safety deposit box at a bank? How to store these things safely?

[geekette]

We have a fire proof safe in the house, mostly so we know where everything is.  I suppose if we had anything seriously valuable, we might use a safety deposit box.  For documents, though, I like access. I'd hate to have to run by the bank on the way to the airport to pick up my passport, which is, of course, how it would go.

[shadowmoss]

I piggy-back off my Mom's box.  I have my will, titles to my Jeep and mobile home, and a 1T exterman usb drive with backups from all of my computers from the beginning.  That is one of my off-site locations for the data.  I just asked Mom to bring it home next time she is at the bank as I'll be making a new round of backups.  I like to keep a safety deposit box to have off-site storage, but don't keep my passport there.  I have it with me most of the time.  Hold over from when I lived outside the US.

I'll also probably put a few somewhat rare coins in there.  I don't play around with the coins much, and would hate to lose them to theft or fire.

[Rural]

We do. Original DD 214 and copies of wills and powers of attorney, as well as a copy of the folder I made up for him with account numbers, contacts, and passwords,as well as info on life insurance, etc.


We got it shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans - at one time, the Navy kept its records in downtown NO. We don't know what, if anything was lost, but there's no guarantee we'd have been told.

Also copies of birth certificates and deeds, but not passports - they're expired, anyway. Which is actually a pretty good argument for sticking them in there, now that I think about it.

[MrsPete]

We have a safe in our house.  We purchased it from Craigslist.  We'd like to find a second one.  In our opinion, this is the best option because it's IN OUR HOUSE, not elsewhere; thus, it's convenient.