Protecting your Go-Kit Contents

"Money, money, money. Always sunny, in the rich mans world" - ABBA

In yesterday's post I discussed adding financial items and contact information to your Go-Kit. This could be extremely helpful in putting your life back to together after a catastrophic emergency. However it can also result in total ruin if your Go-Kit were lost and a thief stole your identity.

Let's start with cash. It's good to have some cash in the Go-Kit, say $20-$100. After a hurricane or during a blackout the ATM's will be out of service and the banks not functioning. There is no way to prevent the theft of cash so pack only what you can afford lose. As an alternative to cash, consider barter. A friend, who lived in Saudi Arabia, says prepared persons wear gold jewelry to use in emergencies when you need to buy or bribe your way to safety. Consider packing extra items that you can share or trade such as sewing needles, candy bars, lighters, matches, etc.

When the electricity comes back, a useful item to have is a debit card in your Go-Kit. When protected by a PIN this is equivalent to safe cash that can not be stolen from you. Make sure your spouse and older children know the PIN. Teach your children never to share the PIN with anyone.

The contact info is probably safe to store on paper so long as you stick to just phone numbers for friends and family. Keep the paper inside a zip-lock bag so it is not destroyed by water. If you're like most people your only record of many phone numbers is on your cell phone. If the phone is lost or the battery dies, can you access the numbers you need?

For personal information like account numbers for banks, medical, insurance, etc. I store the information electronically. Important documents like the car title are scanned into my home PC, copied to MS Word, and then the Word document is protected with a password. Detailed contact information is typed to a Word doc and password protected. These documents were then copied to a flash drive ($10-$25) that is the size of your thumb and easily fits in a Go-Kit and my wife's purse. This give us the best of all possible worlds. Most any PC will be able to open our vital documents but only for someone knowing the passwords.

Bottom Line
Be financially prepared in a safe way. Look for ways to make the information and cash accessible only to yourself and not a thief.