What Can be More Frugal than being Prepared?

What can be more frugal than being prepared? What if you need to go to a new dentist and you can’t find your membership number, and authorization telephone number, for your dental insurance or discount plan? What if you need to pick up a part time job and you can’t find the documents you need to get authorized to work the job?

Or worse, what if the grid goes down and you can’t just look things up on the internet? Some years back, one of my sons used to tease me about my preps, saying that I was preparing for the grid to go down. I used to smile, and tell him that wasn’t what I was preparing for, that it had never even occurred to me that the “grid” would go down. That was true, but more recently it has definitely occurred to me. But I don’t see it as all or nothing!

Remember that day last July when Microsoft went down for a day for many businesses? I had a doctor’s appointment already scheduled for that day. The doctor’s office called me and told me to go to urgent care instead. Patient First had a different system, and was still up and running. But what if some systems went down and lasted longer than a day?

We can’t control if or when a system might go down, but we can make sure we have access to as much information as possible that we might need. So, while I do have digital “everything”, I think we also need to consider what my son used to tease me about: “What if the grid goes down?” But let’s not panic. “Grid down” doesn’t have to mean universal or even widespread. But what if – like July 19, 2024 - some part of the grid goes down for some limited period of time?

As individuals, we wouldn’t be able to solve all the problems. But what if, instead of relying on everything digital, we have paper copies of some of the information and documents we might need? That’s all I’m saying. As we prepare for winter, let’s take a bit of time to get our paper houses in order. And I’m talking to myself as well as everyone else, as I need to “up my game” in this area.

So, here are some questions:

Do you know where your ID documents are? Sure, your driver’s license or state ID is in your wallet. But if you have a passport, do you know where it is? Is it up to date? How about your birth certificate?

What about educational documents? Recently, I heard of someone scrambling to get a high school diploma for a job (even though they had been to college and had the college documents). If you still have a copy of your high school diploma, you might want to keep it. If you have been to college, do you have a copy of the transcript?

Here’s one I’ve fallen behind on myself: For financial institutions and bills, do we have the phone numbers and addresses? These are things we used to have before everything became so easy on the internet. If we have access to a computer and printer, we might make keeping this information as fancy as spreadsheets put into a binder. But we could also use a spiral notebook or loose sheets of paper in a folder.

And recently, probably since July’s outage made me more aware, I’ve been trying to keep my latest monthly statement for loans, such as the mortgage, the loan for the roof, and such as that in a safe place. That way, if I ever needed to, I could prove that this amount has already been paid.

If you don’t have a will, I highly recommend it. A will made with an attorney is probably safest, but if you can’t afford it, there are ways to make your own.

Also, on the subject of wills, if you have step-children, please make sure you have wills set up so that your money goes to whom you want it to, regardless of who dies first. My mother died before my step-father, and he died a few years later without a will. So, the house they had bought with my mom’s inheritance from her parents, and with her hard work, went to his nieces and nephews who, to my knowledge, he had had no contact with for years, possibly decades. It’s just the way it works if there is no will!

You might be able to think of other documents you might want to have in print. These are just ideas.

God bless, and be safe.