Safety Deposit Box or Stored at Home: What We Keep Where and Why

It can be tough in this day and age to know where to keep your most precious of documents. Personally, I want certain things that I need on a regular basis accessible, but secure, and other items just plain secure. Still, my wife and I don’t want to have to be running back and forth between the bank each time we need certain documents. This means that we must make a call as to whether to keep particular items in a safety deposit box or at home.

Deciding which ones should be kept where though, isn’t always that simple.

Here’s how we make the call.

Social Security Cards, Birth Certificates and Passports

My wife and I haven’t traveled outside the country since our honeymoon cruise nearly six years ago, and with exception of needing our son’s birth certificate for him to fly with us on vacation before he turned two, I don’t think we’ve needed to produce our Social Security cards, birth certificates or passports for any reason since then.

We find it silly, and frankly somewhat dangerous to keep them at home, since if there were a break-in or fire, we’d possibly lose such documents and go through much more trouble replacing them than having to go to the bank once every blue moon should we need them. Therefore, we keep these documents in our safety deposit box.

Credit Reports

I run our credit reports several times a year just to make sure everything is in order and that there are no surprises lurking in wait somewhere within those pages of past and present creditors.

I tend to retain such documents at home, since for both me and my wife, they are just a bit bulky to go into our safety deposit box. However, I retain them devoid of any sort of identifying account numbers or other personal information such as Social Security numbers in the event that they should be compromised in some way.