Long story that doesn't need much detail, but I've given a thought to discontinuing my safety deposit box in favor of a home wall mounted safe. Advantages I can think of are immediate access outing things in or taking out , few size limitations compared to the dinky trays the bank gives you, no annual fee (although it's not huge). Disadvantages, cost and maybe risk of thefts? Or maybe it's best to have both?
In my married life, my spouse insisted on a home safe. I think it’s dumb because it’s never actually locked. It was some thing I did not want many decades ago, but now I don’t think about it. I make digital copies of my Social Security card, and Passport, and the rest of it I don’t really worry about.
My parents had a safety deposit box at the bank and so I grew up with that idea being reasonable, but I’ve not felt the need for it. actually, now that I think about it, I might have had a bank box the first year or two of my marriage for *MY*stuff.
what is the kind of stuff that you want to protect? Are you protecting from theft or from fire or?
I do not own any objects of worth that need to be kept locked up in a safe space. If my house was destroyed by fire, theoretically, there’s not much in it that could’ve been protected in a lockbox or a safe anyway.
So you don't have a secure place for things like wills or house and car titles? Heirloom family jewelry? Probably not the best place to say, but rhetorical. Also not the best place for details, but I'm running out of space in my safety deposit box and may have to declutter or enlarge. The over flow probably falls into the category of family items nice to protect but not huge value, but possibly fine tucked away in the house if it doesn't burn down, get robbed, or flood out.Originally Posted by iris lilies
yes, the car titles go into the safe, but will and trust is in digital format, I have paper copies just because plus our attorney has digital copies and probably printed copies for all I know. Any jewelry we have is not worth much and I keep it hidden but not in a safe. it would melt if in a fire,, ot big deal. I think DH keeps his coin collection in the unlocked safe but in his mind it’s worth a whole lot more than in reality.
for our old house, we kept the abstract in the unlocked safe too. It went up only until about 1940s. The state of Missouri doesn’t have property abstracts anymore.
Last edited by iris lilies; 4-8-23 at 8:47am.
Both, as you want to have a home inventory/pictures, etc. in the bank in case of fire. (learned from neighbors that experienced one when I helped them come up with an inventory as it was in the house).
After watching Storage Wars on tv and seeing how easy it seems to be to break into many of the home safes, I don't see myself getting one of those. I'm with IL on this one in that I mainly have things of sentimental value that are irreplaceable, but still "things". I'm thinking, however, of looking for a few hiding placed around the house for some items.
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We have a floor safe bolted to the closet floor and fire rated. No thief will be able to grab and go with it.
We actually don't keep.documents in it, but Roger has given me food for thought. That type of stuff is currently in a steel file cabinet that won't last long, but should withstand a quick blaze.
We keep jewelry, some amount of cash that's fairly generous, and extra firearms / ammo as the grandkids visit often and so our stuff gets secured.
In our old Victorian house DH built in one hidey hole in the floorboards. That would have been fine for theft, but useless in a fire. I’m not sure we ever kept anything there.
speaking of theft, let me tell you what happened to us: someone kicked in our back door when we weren’t home late one morning. They ran in and stole the TV and ran out.
Sitting literally within 24 inches of that television was a bureau that was holding all of my sterling silver. Normally I kept that sterling silver on top of the kitchen cabinets where no one could see it, but I had not got around to putting it back up there.
These perps were so stupid they could’ve had something worth a few thousand dollars but instead they got a cheap TV that they could fence for, what, 20 bucks? Perps, they be stupid.
I keep digital copies of important documents online. I keep physical copies at my bank in a safe deposit box, and physical copies here in a fireproof box inside a safe.
Having pulled several safes out of burning buildings, I'm not confident that a "fireproof" box or safe will actually protect your contents from a serious structure fire, as it takes a while to extinguish a fully-involved fire, if it can be done at all, and the safe can easily "cook" for too long. (Which is why we pull the safes out mid-fire if it is reasonable to attempt).
I mostly use safes/vaults around the house to protect valuable or dangerous items from prying eyes/hands.
I keep an easily-locatable "sacrificial" safe with heavy, valueless contents, where hopefully burglars will find, and devote too much time to removing it from its easily-defeatable anchoring system, and dragging it out :-)
That is interesting, bae, a dummy safe.
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