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5 No-Fail Strategies For Recordkeeping
In today's complex world, many people
find that personal recordkeeping is a tedious chore, complicated
by a constant search for vital documents. Here are some ideas,
which we hope will be helpful, for organizing your records:
- Obtain a safe deposit box, and
use it to store documents you need to refer to only occasionally,
such as birth certificates, property deeds, marriage licenses
and death certificates. Register the box in two names so
that another family member has access to the box, and also
keep an inventory elsewhere, of what is in the box, to enable
you to determine whether anything is missing.
- Keep documents such as wills, living
wills, powers of attorney, trusts, life insurance policies
and passports in a secure place in your home (a safe or
fireproof lock box so they can be accessed in an emergency.)
Place a summary of these records in your safe deposit box,
just in case the home based records are lost or damaged
in a fire.
- Let your broker hold your stock
and bond and other investment certificates. Their service
is free and reliable, and you avoid the hassle of having
to mail or deliver documents necessary to conclude investment
transactions.
- Retain all records pertaining to
the original cost of your home and to home improvements
since these will be needed by you or your heirs to substantiate
cost of the property and to calculate the gain on its sale.
These records can probably be kept in a lockbox in your
home.
- Establish a master list of all
of your records and their location and keep copies in your
lockbox at home and in your safe deposit box.
Incidentally, don't be fooled into
believing that by scanning and digitizing your records and
placing them on a computer that you can dispense with the
originals. That's fine for developing a back-up so you can
make duplicate copies of records, but records copied from
a computer file have limited legal use. On the other hand,
the use of computers and suitable software can make your whole
recordkeeping process easier and faster. That's why we offer
financial recordkeeping as an administrative service for clients
and often combine it with overall personal financial services.
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