FREE NEWSLETTER
I have had a safe deposit box for a lot of years. When Wells Fargo took over the local bank I had used since moving to North Carolina and I needed a new one, a safe deposit box was a non-negotiable requirement. I have used it to hold “important” papers, and my “good” jewelry when I was out of the country for months. But I’m no longer taking long trips, and the “important” papers have dwindled to my birth certificate, my marriage and divorce papers, the deed for my (2007) car, and my naturalization certificate, prominently marked “Do Not Copy” . There may be a copy of my will and associated papers in it, I forget, but there are also copies in my apartment and at my lawyer’s office.
Admittedly, the box only costs me $50/year, but do I really need it? Presumably I could replace all the documents, although replacing the naturalization certificate might be a hassle, and the birth certificate is the 1947 original, which I would be sorry to lose. But is it really worth $50 a year to protect them?
Should I buy a safe instead? It seems overkill. Besides, unless it’s bolted to the floor, which my CCRC might not allow, what’s to stop a thief just walking off with the whole thing? It would scream “the good stuff is here”. So I thought I would ask HumbleDollar readers what they do. Of course, you may have more things requiring protection – I don’t own a gun, and small electronics wouldn’t go in the safe in any case.
Should I be worried about fire rather than theft?
We also had a ‘free’ SDB from Wachovia before Wells Fargo took it over. But WF honored the old Wachovia benefits, so I got a free box at a WF in SW FL and all was well…Until Hurricane Irma flooded the bank and WF decided to close that branch! Fortunately ours was high enough to avoid damages, so after WF said they didn’t have any available we moved to a Truist SDB at a discounted $20. Good place for a few gold coins and paper bonds.
Gosh, as the folks who live in Paradise, CA deal with their second conflagration in which homes are totally destroyed, one might think that the reason for safety deposit boxes is self-evident. Perhaps we need to also remember the Oakland Hills Fire which was so hot that in the 1200 homes which burned even the concrete foundations were lost. Or, can we picture the survivors digging through the remnants of a tornado in the Midwest. Then there are landslides, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.
Why would you back up your computer data to the cloud rather than just a separate local hard drive?
There is nothing wrong with owning a safe, and often good reasons for having one, but in so doing, don’t kid yourself that your stuff is just as safe as in a safety deposit box.
Are banks fireproof? Tornado proof?
The vault in the bank is many times stronger more fireproof than your home. Often they have sprinkler systems, and a bank vault can withstand a tornado.