After I got my safe deposit box, I started looking around for stuff to put into it. Obviously, any kind of precious metals should go in there, right? Well, a mercury dime has a grand total of 2.25 grams of silver for about 2 bucks. Silver dollars? 22 bucks IF they have a troy ounce of silver. My shoes are worth $200. Why shouldn’t they go into the box? I stuck two watches I don’t use and a lighter in there. The lighter is a gift from my father, and is a limited edition SJ Dupont lighter with chinese lacquer. Value? On the used market, way way less than either of the watches. One line of thought is you put things in there you don’t want stolen or damaged in a fire. Well, my tv’s are worth more than most things already in there, and I would be very upset if they were damaged or stolen, far more upset than either watch.
My friend has an original Woodstock ticket that he stuck into his box. In bad condition, they probably aren’t worth a silver dollar. However, that probably makes more sense to me to put in there than my watches. Right now, I want to send in my watch for servicing, but I can’t because the bank is closed.
So my question is: what should go into a safe deposit box, and by whatever criteria you use, how much other stuff in your house would fit?
Papers of critical importance come to mind. We’d keep the abstract for our home in a safe deposit box if we had any discretionary funds to spend on such a thing. Unique items and irreplaceable items with sentimental value (like your watches and lighter, maybe) would go in there too. Generic coins with minor precious metals value probably wouldn’t be on my list, but maybe the 1876 quarter we found in our yard would be.
If space were an issue, rarity would trump monetary value, AFAIAC. Fortunately, this is unlikely to be a problem we have to deal with. Our precious possessions would fit in a 1-qt Ziploc bag.
I used to have a box in the 1990s, and found I didn’t put much in. The legal title to the house, a few certificates of deposit (they used paper back then). Basically papers whose loss would get me in some trouble. But I found that the inconvenience of having to go to the bank during opening hours made it not worthwhile, and I cancelled it after a couple of years.
Once you have put all your valuables into the deposit box, the key to the deposit box becomes your most valuable item. So you should put it in as well.
Your father’s lighter isn’t worth that much to others, but it’s worth a lot to you. So if you don’t mind not being able to see it day to day, put it in the safe deposit box. I wouldn’t put my passport there, as I don’t know when I’ll need it. But I might put a hard drive with a current backup of my computer there, and then swap out the backup weekly or monthly.
My mother has a lot of jewelry, so almost all of that is there, except for what she needs for a party that week.
Among the “important papers” to put in a safety deposit box, your will is not one of them.
As the lawyer explained to us when we had ours made out, upon our death, the bank is required to block access to the box until the estate goes thru probate- which requires a will to proceed.
Legal systems are full of fun things like this.
Yeah, we ditched our box a couple years ago. Hadn’t had anything in it for many years but it was free until the last merger. (We did an online transfer a couple days ago. The name of our bank that the other place had was two mergers ago. Same account number, so it’ll go thru.)
This is probably going to vary widely by state law, but at least part of it is inaccurate. A will is not required to probate an estate. In many estates, there is no will. The property of the decedent passes by intestate succession. Also, I’m listed as one of the owners on a safety deposit box owned by my parents. As such, I have access to the box regardless of whether they are present (or still alive). Finally, in my state, it is possible to get a court order allowing access to a safe deposit box in order to search for a will.
As for what to put inside…military discharge paperwork is a good choice, if applicable. You don’t need it often, but when you do, it is handy to know exactly where it is. One time it will be needed is to arrange for military honors at a funeral.
I “inherited” a safety deposit box from my parents when they moved to California a while ago. I finally closed it out this week. I found my birth certificate, my great grandmother’s wedding ring, and a set of cuff links/tie clip that apparently are my uncles based on the initials.
We had one for a while too, but now we have a fire-rated safe. Keeping it in the basement, on a concrete floor, adds to its rated time. We keep birth certificates and other legal papers in it. Much more convenient to go find it in the basement than to go to a safe deposit box.
Yeah, people are always saying dont buy cheap walmart safes, well, walmart safes are around $200, the box costs 30-60/year. Within 3-5 years, the safe paid for itself. And then, i found fire proof gun safes for under 150. But seriously if you’ve got tens of thousands of dollars of stuff at home and hundreds of dollars in a tiny safe deposit box, would that make much of a difference if you got robbed?
I can see having the box if you’ve got gold. At thousands of dollars per square inch, a box makes sense. But even then, i used to take an anti-cholesterol medication at $5 per 10 milligrams, so at $500 per gram, it is 10x the value of gold.
Take important papers like a military discharge to the County Recorder’s office and have it recorded. It only costs a couple of bucks, but then it will be around for your great-great-great grandkids to look up if they want. You can have anything recorded, just be aware that once its officially recorded, its a public document that anyone can see.
I’ve never had a safe deposit box. I just asked Bill and he hasn’t either. We have fire proof safes. Bank hours are kinda limiting, most of the times when we want something out of a safe, its after work or on the weekends and banks aren’t usually open then.
Digital is the new Analog Thats really pretty cool. Are you going to buy a shirt for the cuff links?
Some friends of mine bought a fire safe for their home and used it to store all their important paperwork. They lived in the Oakland hills, back in 1991. As it turns out, those fire safes assume that the fire department will put the fire out… once the house collapses into the foundation and burns down to the coals, there isn’t much left inside the safe except a pile of ashes. Safety deposit box at the bank is probably a better bet.
I actually knew about all the stuff about the cuff links/tie clip…so they are the interesting part.
I went to my parents’ condo this morning and dropped them off. Dad e-mailed his brother (my uncle) to find out if he remembers them. He (my uncle) isn’t much for technology, so I don’t know how often he reads his e-mail. But hopefully we’ll get an answer.
Important papers, valuable jewelry, things with enormous sentimental value that would crush you if destroyed in a fire, photographic negatives (yes, Virginia, some people do have those), etc.
My credit union doesn’t offer them, so I bought a fireproof box (it doesn’t really qualify as a safe) but when I had one, a 3x5 box, which was also about 2 1/2 feet long, was about $20 a year.
I agree that if you only have one copy of a will, it should NOT be placed in the box. Having an updated copy in there is OK.
We put the DVD with our wedding photos on it (we have copies, but that one will definitely be safe) and some of my husband’s comic books that are valuable that we don’t want to have to worry about until he decides to sell them. Climate controlled, etc.
My top use for my SDB is to rotate my computer backups into it. One at home, one in the box. Nightly full backups, drives rotated every few weeks. I’m self-employed and work at home, so protecting my data is a big deal.
I opened a safe deposit box last month once I found out the price was modest ($25/year for a pretty good sized one). I keep our house insurance papers and copy of the deed there, because after all if the house is destroyed, those would be handy to have.
A word of caution: generally, fire-resistant safes that you buy as a consumer are good for keeping papers and similar items safe from most fires, but are typically not rated safe for media. CDs, DVDs, magnetic tapes, and similar items are more sensitive to heat than paper. They may physically survive a fire in a safe, but they may no longer be readable. Specialized media safes are available with a higher rating.
As per ftg & Oakminster, set up your safe deposit box account so that someone of your choice can access it when you are incapacitated or dead without having to use papers in that very same box as authority to access it. Similarly, if you share a box with someone (e.g. your spouse), set it up so that your access will not be frozen if this person is incapacitated or dead. Talk to a local estates lawyer about this, for laws differ by jurisdiction.
As far as fire-proof home safes go, get the one with the longest fire rating, put your valuables in a waterproof metal (non-plastic) container, put the container in the fireproof safe, and put the safe in that big moose freezer in the basement so that it will have a better chance of outlasting a fire. Just remember that these little safes are quite easy for robbers to pick up and carry away.
If you decide to not keep your testamentary documents in a safe deposit box and instead to use a home safe, consider not keeping them in your home, and instead keep them in your executor/attorney’s place, so that if your home burns up with you in it, the documents will survive, and if your executor/attorney’s place burns up all you have to do is print off and execute new documents.
We keep our birth certificates, marriage license, deed, car titles and passports when we are not using them in ours. Also valuable jewelry, like a big gold chain my wife bought me when we were engaged back when gold was cheap.
I think it makes more sense to keep wills filed with the attorney who drew it up. That’s what I did with my father’s, and when he died I just called up the attorney and asked him to file it. In California it is common for anything of any value to be in a trust anyway.
