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With the 2 simple steps this article contains, you can take the necessary steps to get yourself and your family prepared for 2 common, yet different emergencies that can be anywhere from annoying and costly to personally devastating. September, the National Preparedness Month, is upon us. Now is the time to get your family prepared!

In their 6th year, the National Preparedness Month (NPM) is supported by Coalition Members across the USA, in a nationwide effort sponsored by the Ready Campaign, which is helping you be aware and prepared. Many people think they’re prepared or don’t think it will happen to them. Yet it happens! There are two simple steps, with a couple of common sense tips that will get you ready and prepared for the 2 most common emergencies. What are they? Quick and easy, these 2 simple steps will save you the hassle and frustration in the wake of such emergencies! Travel often? Then these make even more sense to implement into your life.

Emergency #1 – Stolen Wallet Take a few minutes and make a photocopy of everything in your wallet including the front and back of your credit cards and membership cards. Place the copied pages in a manila envelope and mark the envelope “Contents of Wallet” and date it. Place the envelope in your safe deposit box. Mark your calendar for 3 to 6 months from now to update your “Contents of Wallet” envelope. Now, if your wallet is lost or stolen you will now know exactly what you lost and whom you need to contact.

Emergency #2 – Flood, Fire or Break In The best way to prepare for one of these emergencies is to have a safe that is both water and fireproof. You could opt to keep your items in a safe deposit box at the bank; it’s just a bit less accessible than one that is in your home. Last year there were some flood victims in SE MN who had to work hard to prove they own the property that was destroyed. They lost their mortgage, titles and deeds in the flood. Having your important difficult to replace documents in a safe along with an up to date household inventory (and appraisals or receipts of valuables) can save you quite a bit of time, money and headache if you have a flood, fire or break in.

Take a Household Inventory Now is the time to take a digital camera, snap some photos and make an inventory of the items in your home. Even if you don’t have a DVD burner at your home, there are many drug stores that offer the technology at their convenient locations. Three copies of this photo CD (or DVD) go to three different places. One will stay with you and go in your personal safe, your insurance agent gets one and the final copy goes to the executor of your Will. Include appraisals or receipts for high dollar items and put those in your safe along with your CD or DVD of photos. You could even make digital copies of these documents and make another CD as record.

Protect Your Family Photos In the event of a fire, focus on getting your family out alive and not focusing on grabbing the family photo album. But what about losing all of those precious baby photos? Get to work on scanning those photos to a CD or DVD. The same with your property inventory, make about three copies. Keep one in your personal safe, give the other two to parents, or grown children for safe keeping.

HOT TIP! Use ICE! ICE is: In Case of Emergency; now use it as part of the name of someone you would want to be contacted in the case you have an unexpected trip to the nearest Emergency Room. Everyone has a cell phone, now you and hospitals can use it to an advantage!

Implement these simple home organization and emergency planning tips and you could end up saving yourself a lot of energy, money, time and frustration. Visit the Ready Campaign’s government website for more helpful tips at http://www.ready.gov/america/index.html.

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