Do you have an inventory of your home? Here's how.
Unless you have had the sad experience of having a fire in your home or perhaps have been robbed you won't know the necessity of having an inventory of your home. Be prepare as either of these problems could occur at any given moment and you won't have this information for your insurance company or for a tax deduction.
To keep an inventory of your home is like keeping an account book. You need to go room by room and itemize each item in that room, each lamp, inventory that lamp, and put down the estimated price paid and the estimated price to replace it.
If you still have the receipt for the purchase of the lamp keep it in a file. You can also videotape each room in your house or take pictures and keep them in a safe place in case of loss to have proof of having the items in your home.
It would be a wise idea to have an inventory of your clothing, this could amount to a great deal of money and loss if not accounted for in an inventory.
Inventories are invaluable in cases of real emergency, but they are also helpful as a control on the upkeep and also the repair of your home. Say you would rent out your home furnished, if you move, or if you have to settle an estate.
If you will contact your insurance company they will perhaps have a special booklet as an example for household inventories and this should be available free of charge.
Now if you are a collector, naturally, you will need to save records of your purchases such as pictures, sculptures, etc. The book will be a pleasure to have, and in the future if your estate is settled it will be very helpful in evaluating these items.
Also file to have would be a reference file with the booklets, literature that came with each appliance for directions on use and also of parts that might need to be replace. If you have a filing cabinet you might want to have a file folder for each item, for example the refrigerator, microwave, etc.
Now don't just do the inventory and put in a lot of time and effort and then just lay that inventory book by the side or put in a drawer, have a special place for all of the inventory information for your home. When you lay something down and don't have a special place to keep it chances are you will forget where you put it and it is lost for a very long time.
Keep all records also of repairs on anything done in your home as the item might not work very long or something installed could leak and you can refer back to when you got the repairman to fix that item and perhaps the work has a warranty that has not expired.
