Nobody in my extended family has ever had one that I know of. I can’t imagine paying for one, nor what I’d store in one even if they were both free and convenient, when as best I can tell they are neither.
My wifes’ extended family all seem to have one and it’s somehow a cornerstone of All Things Financial.
This discrepancy came to light the other day when I asserted that SDBs were some Depression- (or earlier) era thing that only little old ladies used nowadays. I said that very soon the banks’ last few SDB renters would die of old age. *Au contrere *said wife & some others.
Background: We’re all comfy-class white bread American; no Rockefellers, but nobody’s ever gone without a second car either. We’re in our 50s, so the extended family runs from folks born in the 1910s up through folks born in the 1990s
So Dopers, what say ye: Are SDBs an archaic holdover from the days of bearer bonds and unreliable (or rampantly dishonest) record keeping? Or are they a routine (or vital?) part of a well-organized Middle American life?
If you have one, what sort of stuff do you keep in it? Valuables, vital records, memorabilia? The preserved brain of Uncle Albert?
Inquiring Minds Want to Know.
For non-US types:
US Terminology: a “safe deposit box” or “safety deposit box” is a small safe built into the vault of a bank. They’re generally drawer-shaped and you rent one from the bank for a fee. They generally take 2 keys to open, one of which they have and one of which they give to you. Small boxes are about 2"x5" in cross section & 18-24" deep. Larger ones can be up to 9"x12"x18-24 deep. An ordinary bank branch’s vault will have upwards of 100 SDBs inside.
I expect these are common in most of the civilized world. Do you have something similar / identical, and, more importantly, what do you call it/them in your part of the world?
We had one for a few years (yup, I’m a Depression generation guy) to store our will, insurance policies, army discharge papers, etc. In fact, anything that was too valuable or irreplacable to risk having it lost in a fire or burglary.
It was a pain in the pratt whenever had to go to retrieve or insert something.
I finally decided that the cost, over the years, was sort of silly, so purchased a fireproff safe large enough for this stuff for a very reasonable price.
If you have bags full of stolen diamonds, and are worried about the cops getting a search warrant, it might be worth it.
The gun safe works for us, but I can see the attraction of off-site storage of valuable papers and the like. My parents always had one while I was growing up. If it was offered free by my financial institution I might make use of it as a hard-copy back-up.
My parents had one when I was growing up (and still do). They use it for storage primarily of jewelry. So if my parents were expecting to go to a fancy dress party on a Friday or Saturday night, they would visit the bank earlier that day to get an appropriate set, and then return it to the bank after the weekend.
BTW, the whole ritual was kind of fun for us as kids. We would go to the bank and stand outside the vault until an available teller came over and had my parent sign the form, which was then compared against the file copy. They would take our key and their key and unlock the drawer. We would then take the safe deposit box to a private room to do our business.
I don’t have jewelry but am considering getting one for off-site data backups.
Don’t have one personally, but chime in with some observations from life.
My parents (near 60) still have one, and, like most law-abiding people, store legal papers, old silver coins and such. Anything one wouldn’t want stolen or burned, basically. They might’ve rented it after the incident in which our savings bonds were ‘donated’ to charity in an old sweater.
I currently work at a bank which has ~250 boxes, 1/3 of which are rented. A yearly rental is $44 and up. Sizes are small, medium, and ‘can store all your Christmas lights’. Age range of the renters seems to span about 35-70, but plenty are from the younger end of that spectrum, typically arriving with a backpack and carting their box into the secret room.
It is that closed door policy that shields customers from legal issues and curious bank employees from any sort of satisfaction, but many times unabashed customers will arrive with savings bonds in envelopes or manila folders marked ‘Legal’, or perfectly fit men will struggle under the tremendous weight of their box (time to use some of that gold to rent another one!) or, in one case, yell for help from a bank employee because her extra large box could not fit back into its home due to the fact that large denomination bills were preventing the lid from shutting!
I am 36 with two small children and I am seriously considering getting one. I have had very serious health issues in the past few months that mean that rapid death could occur at any time (or maybe not; nobody knows) and I want to make things as easy as possible on my family if the worst should occur. A central place where I could store a will, life insurance papers, savings bonds, etc. would be ideal. I wouldn’t store anything else like jewelry in it and I already have a small fireproof safe but that could be stolen.
I use mine primarily to store one of the two external HDs I rotate between home and the box for computer backup; I’m self-employed and there’s no other suitable place for offsite backups.
As long as we have it, we keep important papers in there: deed to the house, birth certificates, some stuff of my mom’s (I’m her POA for health care and other things), property list for insurance, etc.
I have one. I have both of our passports in there, as well as his birth certificate and my Naturalization papers. I have my adoption papers, my real dad’s death certificate. I also have a tie pin from his great-grandfather which he doesn’t wear (it’s very outdated) but he wants to keep in the family.
Basically things that I don’t need on a day-to-day basis but can’t really lose. The adoption papers and my dad’s death certificate, for example, are irreplaceable, as is the tie pin. The former are from India, the latter from China. The cost is not worth talking about - it’s something like $80 a *year *and it’s auto withdrawal every month.
I consider it a part of being an adult, to have a safety deposit box.
36-year-old childless couple here. We have one for important papers (marriage license, birth certificate, living will, etc), mostly as a precaution against fire and burglary. Yeah, we could replace them if needed, but a SDB is cheap enough for the added protection.
Never saw the need – we have a fireproof safe that I keep well hidden in the house. All the important documentation and such is in there, and in the event something tragic happened and next of kin needed to get ahold of it, they know where it is.
I’m 44 and we’ve had one since we were 25 or so. We use ours for all sorts of things including birth certificates, passports, copy of a video inventory we do of everything in the house once a year, wills, financial documents, listing and details of every investment account (my wife would never find everything if something happened to me), and other valuables we couldn’t replace easily.
I also recently added some cash in multiple currencies. I don’t expect that to have practical value, but it makes me feel like Jason Bourne. If nothing else, it will make the kids scratch their heads when we are dead and gone.
IANAL, but: It is NOT a good idea to keep your will in the safe deposit box. How are your heirs and executor supposed to get it if they don’t have the document that says who is allowed to have the contents of the box? It’s a better idea to have a copy of the will at home, and/or in the possession of the executor, with the original in the safekeeping of the lawyer who drew it up.
We keep things in our sdb that are only occasionally needed but very difficult to replace: marriage certificate, birth certificates, passports. If I had any really valuable jewelry I guess I’d keep it there, but I don’t. If you’re a homeowner, keep the deed to your home there. You never need that unless you’re going to sell it, but you want it safe. It’s a good place for car titles, also.
You have a key; the bank has a key. You go up to one of the tellers or the bank reps and tell them you need to get in your safety deposit box. They take you into the room with all of the boxes. Both of you have to put in your keys to work. You sign a little form. You take the box and they give you a private little room with a very heavy door to do your thing. You take it in there, do your thing, then come back out and call the bank rep over again. You sign the time you put it back and then you put it back in the wall. You both lock it. You walk away with your key.
I don’t have a will with a lawyer. I suppose one day I should get one. But I will keep a copy at home - however, the box is in both of our names, and we have two keys, so it’s not like he can’t get in there too.
Executor! Ha. I’d need one of those if I had much to give away. Really I just want him to have all of the rights over me and my stuff and not my parents.
I get them for free since I’m an “elite” bank customer. There is absolutely no downside to having one except that you don’t have ready access to the items 24/7. Then again, I see no reason why I need 24/7 access to my house deed, surveyors papers, will documents, etc. Also, if you’re carrying an homeowners insurance rider for something (like, say, you have a whole bunch of platinum bullion) you could put it in your box and get rid of the insurance rider, saving money.
Another thing to consider is that IIRC there have been a few reviews of “fireproof” home safes finding that “fireproof” is more “fire resistant”. They’re also sometimes not watertight, so when your fire safe falls into the basement, which fills with water from the fire company putting out your house, all your vital records become a sodden, ruined mess. Also, note that many home safes like those little Sentry ones are possible to cart away whole if not strapped down to the concrete or something.
The best advice for sleeping the deep sound sleep of the financially prudent includes keeping certain important documents offsite under the best security that can be obtained at reasonable cost. Safe deposit boxes are tailor made.
But if you have an strong argument for keeping such documents close at hand, and the risks of loss don’t intrude upon your conscious mind, you can save as much as $100 per year. There is no correct or incorrect answer.
But you’ve probably already noticed that your wife’s extended family are doing better than yours, on average, from a strictly financial standpoint. Correct?
