Hewes Family Fun

Previously, I had written about our family binder, but it has been almost 10 years since I put our family binder together, and I figured it was time to update it and write a new post.

You can find my old post here, and a lot has changed in that time.

• I have two kids!  I have a teenager!
• Most of my bills are paid via auto debit.
• I have gone paperless with most of the bills.

I still want to be able to have my life together if there is some sort of emergency. This Binder is “The House is on Fire- Grab this and the kids and the cat!!” type of information. This is one of the things I would grab if there were a natural disaster like a wildfire. It’s part of my Bug Out Bag packing list.

Here are the updated sections that I have in my family binder:

Home information:

• I have a copy of my homeowners’ insurance policy. The declarations page shows the policy number, the amount of coverage, and contact information for the insurance company in case I need it.
• Once a year, I print off a mortgage statement which shows all of our information from our mortgage, just in case I need to get a hold of it, but usually I just contact them through their website.
• One other thing that you will only need in your family binder if you live in a condominium/HOA is a copy of the HOA Master Insurance Policy for your housing group. My mortgage company requests one every year, and when they request one, I am also sent one that I keep one of those in my family binder.
• Copy of my deed. I have needed it exactly twice in the 10 years. I’ve owned a home, but it is always good to have one and know where it is.
• The CC&R’s and bylaws for my HOA. Again, it’s not every day that I need these things, but in case of some sort of emergency, I know where they are.
• The deed to my parking space. Where I live, we have a deeded parking space, and it is our exclusive use area. If someone parks in my parking spot and does not leave when I ask them to, I can have them towed, and the parking space deed is what I show to the tow truck driver when he shows up.

Vehicle Information:

• The current year’s vehicle registration information. I keep the registration notice that they send us in the mail. I need it when I file the taxes for the next year,
• The title for each of the cars, and proof of insurance for both of the cars. The declarations page shows the policy number, the amount of coverage, and contact information for the insurance company in case I need it.
• The Vehicle section is also where I store paperwork regarding work that has been done to our cars that has been covered by a recall, or paperwork for extensive vehicle repairs (usually anything over $1500).

The Important Stuff: This is the paperwork that we need to prove who we are.

Everyone has their own pages in this section. This includes birth certificates, Social Security cards, and passports.

I have copies of our identification cards/driver’s licenses, and copies of school ID cards for each of the kids. This is also where I keep their vaccination cards and printouts from the doctor showing their vaccinations. Because when they were younger, I would frequently forget to take their yellow vaccine cards with me when we went to the pediatrician. In addition to vaccine cards, I also have photocopies of everyone’s insurance cards as well.

Everything Else

Most of the rest of this is kept as a note in my phone, but I also print it out and put it into my family binder about once a year when I update other things like insurance and vehicle registration paperwork.

Utility Companies, including the name/type of the utility company, our account numbers, and their phone number in case I need to call them. For us, it is just water and power. Our HOA dues pay for our trash pickup. But I also have the name and phone number of the garbage company, as well as our HOA contact information in case I need either of those for some reason.

Because we do paperless billing and automatic bill pay every month for the majority of our bills, I do not receive a paper bill, and I do not store copies of our paper bills. That is why I have contact information for everything and account numbers. Most everything we have online access to, such as our utilities and our mortgage statement.

Your family binder should be the thing that you grab if your house is on fire.

As somebody who has lived in Southern California their entire adult life, I have seen a lot of natural disasters, mostly in the form of wildfires, and I know people who have had to evacuate with less than an hour’s notice.

My family binder is a 3 inch three-ring binder, and it has dividers for each section, and most everything is stored in a page protector. Some of the items are three whole punched and directly placed into the binder, like my deed, the rules and regulations, and CC&Rs for our HOA, because those are multi-page documents.

But for things that we need to keep in pristine order, like original birth certificates, baptismal records, and Social Security cards, those go in heavy-duty page protectors.