Your financial grab-and-go bag

My sister Betty retired in Florida years ago and has been chased from her home by hurricanes and tropical storms many times. And she learned the wisdom of keeping a “grab-and-go” bag early on. A change of clothes, copies of important documents, some extra cash – essential items she could grab in a hurry without thinking on her way out the door.

Chances are you don’t live in a hurricane magnet like the southeast coast, but no place is disaster-proof. A tornado, wildfire, extended power outage, flash-flooding, earthquake, even civil unrest could force you to leave home quickly. And if that happens, you don’t want to be rummaging through your basement looking for things you might need if you can’t get back into the house for a while.

I have a couple of excellent resources to help you get organized and prepared, all paid for with your tax dollars:

Ready.gov will show you what belongs in your basic disaster supplies kit. These are mostly items to keep in your home, work, or car, such as food, water, flashlights, pet supplies, etc.

On the financial side, the Emergency Financial First Aid Kit is a 41-page guide jointly published by FEMA and Operation Hope. The PDF version allows you to fill in forms with essential financial information and then save and/or print it.

You can go as far as you want with this information, anywhere from basic preparedness to full-out-survivalist mode. But at a minimum, here’s what I want to have – at a minimum – in my financial grab-and-go bag the next time the sirens go off:

• Proof of identity: copies of my driver’s license, passport, Social Security card, health insurance cards, birth and marriage certificates.
• Copies of my credit cards.
• Enough cash to keep me solvent for a few days in case I can’t use an ATM or credit cards.
• A list of important phone numbers, account numbers, and passwords.
• A copy of my medical power of attorney and advance health directive, along with a list of medications and immunization records.
• A copy of my car title, registration, AAA card, and proof of insurance.

The good news is that with modern technology – to the extent that you trust and feel confident using it – most of your financial grab-and-go bag can be stored and accessed electronically. You can upload them to the cloud or scan and save them to a thumb drive you can take with you. Some financial institutions, including mine, allow clients to securely store insurance policies, tax returns, investment records, estate documents, mortgage information, and other vital records online.

At the very least, use your cell phone camera to take pictures of everything mentioned above. Walk around your home and make a video inventory of your possessions. Share those digital files with your spouse or close family members.

I hope that fate and good fortune steer you away from disaster. But life comes with no guarantees, and it’s been my experience that the more prepared you are for something, the less likely it seems to happen.

Any opinions are those of Mike Brown Financial Group and not necessarily those of Raymond James.