So as deals go by and my possessions rack up, i'm thinking it would be a nightmare to 'start from scratch' in case of house fire/robbery or the like. Thinking about starting a spreadsheet with time of purchase, reciept and maybe a photo? I know contents insurance is a thing but i'm thinking it would be a hard time getting everything replaced without it being documented. Any tips or effective ways of mananging this?
Cheers,
the best possession
I only keep track of my macros
Same.
I store all my macros in the same folder and do 3 backups per week.
What's a macro?
In Microsoft Excel, a macro is an action or a set of actions that can be recorded, named, saved and executed as many times as required and whenever desired.
Thanks. So, by "gains" he's referring to shares, etc.? Or is he a body builder and he's tracking his muscle gains?
The most aesthetic answer
Does she put herself on that list?
Just take pics but for worst case sicario as a fire, insurance company asses and only gives you a lump sump based on your cover, they don't care about itemised list/bills etc.
wah, movie to watch, thanks jv :)
watch the 2015 1st chapter first
i do.. have an excel sheet with make/model, serial number, purchase date/from where, receipt, order numbers etc etc
Are you using Excel tables, or just a list?
can't remember where i got the template from, but its similar to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbeeCnncxGA
its taken ages though, eg; in the study, i've listed everything like mouse, monitor, keyboard, laptop models, ssd upgrade details, ram upgrade details
Despite having AdBlock Plus, I was forced to watch two ads back-to-back, to only see a video in Hindi. Come on, bruh!
@s1Lence: Samsung's default browser. I was on my phone when I clicked on the YT link. I use Firefox on my PC so I never get any ads there.
Do you include fridge contents too?
Same for us. We use a Excel spreadsheet, with categories like Furniture, AV Equipment, Collectibles, etc. We go it through it once a year before our insurance is due (more, if we remember!) to add new purchases, delete things we've sold/donated/binned, and update amounts. Helps us work out our insurance, but also good to have if we lost everything. We email it ourselves when it's updated. It took forever to get the first version created, but is easy to update now. We also take photos of most things, but sometimes just a shelf of power tools, for example, instead of each individual one.
Wow, hardcore..
Does she update it everytime she buys a dress or bag? Ot just for big things?
I'm not a handbag/fancy clothes kind of gal. ;) Plus we donate clothes throughout the year, so it evens out if we buy new ones.
Our list has big items specified, but also some smaller things likes collectables, jewellery, first edition books that are worth a fair bit, etc. Other things we've listed as general entries like "Clothes", "Shoes", "Blu-rays", etc, with just estimated amounts next to each of those. Helps us when we're reviewing our contents insurance each year.
I've been meaning to do this for years.. And everytime I buy a new piece of tech I'm like 'okay I'll start the list with this one!'
….Nope lol.
Too hard
Yes. My brain does it for me.
Save all receipts to Google Drive by date.
Dual benefit, helps at tax time too.
Types "receipt" in google photos, and done.
Just go the Ozbargain and look at past top deals - done!
Sometimes I buy food from the shop and forget about it as soon as I get home. Kinda nice when it's a snack and I discover it later.
did that with Chicken breasts once, unfortunately it was just before a weekend at home in summer. I can tell you it was NOT something you wanted to snack on when I opened the car boot on monday.
I was living in the dorms at college and I had my own fridge. I had bacon in the freezer and on summer break I was going to take it with my back to mom's place but I forgot to take it with me. What I didn't forget was to unplug the fridge before I left to save power. When I got back someone had rolled the fridge out to the balcony because of the smell and inside the freezer was a deleted scene from a Cronenberg film.
Everything of relative importance i purchase online therefore invoice is in an email.
Physical receipts use phone scan apps and save to cloud etc.
Exactly the same as me mate.
I take my PC and my dog - the rest can burn
Strictly in that order?
Nah, Dog comes first. Need him to carry the monitor.
Do You Keep Track of All Your Possessions?
What possessions? Isn't it the case for most guys that the wife owns everything? haha
to what level do you go to?
do you itemise in a spreadsheet every pair of jocks and socks you own. do you comment on quality and skid stains
if my place burnt down, I would do a rough estimate of what I own and give to insurance, my possesions are not unreasonable and probly less than everage
Mate of mine takes a video of all his stuff/electronics etc inside and outside every 6 months…
Stores the videos in his amazon account.
He also has a spreadsheet with all dates and serial numbers of his stuff.
Too much like hard work for me.
Video for the win. It's all the small stuff which will add up come insurance time. Things like clothes, photo frames, books, etc all add up. Big ticket items then for sure an excel spreadsheet, but I dont see a video being a big issue.
Define "all your possessions". I mean, if we're going down to every half-used roll of toilet paper, we're going to be here for a long time and for very little benefit.
I assume you're talking about in the event of an insurance claim.
If you were so inclined, I would draw the line at some financial level … any item/set of items valued at more than (say) $2,000. Beyond that, so long as your claim is within your sum insured and is reasonable within normal insurance limits, you're not going to have a problem.
I do asset registers at work, dont get paid to do at home
Yeah, there's a spare room full of boxes of unknown stuff, the extension has a big pile of unknown stuff, and the cupboards are stuffed full of unknown stuff. The moment I throw any of it away I find I need to buy whatever it was, so it's best to keep it all.
Don't get carried away. Your Ali purchases are worth jack to an insurer.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
I can certainly find possession of some weed on you.
For the first 30 years of our marriage the missus requested to be tracked. Then some f w's outlawed it!!
I have a spreadsheet of either
Maybe just take pics of all your most expensive stuff, and start taking pics of the receipts, as you buy stuff.
your phone is pretty adept at reading text in photos now, so the photo Search function is handy.
I keep a spreadsheet for each FY so my current one is named 2022-2023.xlsx I use it record all my financial transactions thoughout the year. This helps when I prepare my tax return. I have worksheets in it with info about my shares, property, bank loans/accounts etc. There's also a worksheet called 'Purchases' where I record all my online buys to keep track if I have received them or not. Columns are: date, amount, received and comments. I highlight the 'received' cell whenever I buy something, when I receive it I enter the received date and unhighlight it. In 'comments' I copy/paste the decription and URL and any other info like if I had it sent to a different address. I keep the spreadsheet in a folder called 2022-2023 along with all relevant documents inc bills, rent statements, dividend notices, bank statements, recipts, invoices, body corp info, photos, vehicles etc. This folder is copied to OneDrive so I can access everything on my phone or when traveling. I like to think I've perfected the art of organising using this method but always happy to tweak it if someone has better ideas.
Have you ever added up the figures and realised you're missing 5c?
*flashback to the days of balancing home loan ledgers by hand each month and working back (unpaid) to find the tiniest discrepancy.
I'm not balancing anything, I'm just recording my online purchases and marking them off when it arrives
too busy doom scrolling to track my life doom scrolling.
If you dont know what you have it doesnt need replacing
Too much time on your hands !!
For insurance purposes you could start by just taking photos of everything you own. Deal with the itemisation when you need to.
Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I used to, a long time ago. Now I’ve got so much sh*# it’d be kinda nice to start from scratch … with an insurance payout to fund it.
Apparently renting storage is becoming a big thing with people not able to resist buying. Usually its not valuable possessions people just cant let go of stuff. They probably complain they dont earn enough either.
Storage is pretty expensive. Just recently stored a work vehicle and the spot was 525 a month. Fine if you're only needing it temporarily..
i still have my lunch money from the third grade
I do. I find being able to see everything in your house in one place and the process of creating the list very useful to see what you don't have a need for and can get rid of.
I would recommend using either Airtable or Notion (both free) instead of a spreadsheet. Their database features make it easier to add tags, dates, images, etc.
No - but that's because I don't spend excessively. Most of my furniture is 10 years old+ and not really worth a lot so even if it all burnt down I wouldn't actually care that much.
Computer, TV, Phone, Keys, Wallet, Car, Motorbike, BBQ, Bed and desk
easy??
Contents insurance is fortunately quite easy and not everything needs to be documented to the T, agreed value of your goods is up to what you and the insurance company agree on. I'd just take the payout and buy/replace what you need to at the time. I would calculate how much you'd need to replace it all though,
Yes at an aggregate level in a 'Net Wealth' spreadsheet.
I buy most of my expensive/electronic items on Amazon so it's easy to find an invoice for insurance purpose.
All the smaller ticket items you can re-buy as you go.
I think you'll find you don't even use 70% of the things you own.
hmmm this is a good reminder, been a few years since I updated my spreadsheet and photos I keep in cloud storage for insurance purposes. task for the long weekend. Always so much easier to deal with insurance if you have good records rather than "I swear that burnt out frame was a $12k original oil painting by X"
I don't keep track but did have to make an insurance claim. Went through my emails for all my online purchases going back 10 years or so and then listed things that I remembered having but didn't have receipts for.
They put together a spreadsheet of what I lost and what they proposed to replace with, after a bit of back and forth we agreed and they organised for click and collect from their suppliers for most things and gave me cash for the rest.
Most surprising this was they replaced old for new unlike car insurance where they pay out current value.
If my home burned down, I'd be grateful, as i have so much stuff It's really hard to get rid of it. My only concern is rebuilding the house so that's all i insure for.. the rest is meh.
Bonfire at your place this weekend hey? ;)
Who really has time to do this like every few months or every year. For possessions most people will only have documents, photos, some furniture, TV, mobile phones etc. Unless you live in a castle or some mansion with selected hand crafted expensive things like paintings, furniture etc. So do you go back and remove items from Excel sheets too when you get rid off it? I keep receipts of expensive things in my email and may be a photo..
Possessed by Possessions,
By this point, they should be keeping a track of you.
Fight Club - The things you own, end up owning you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIvW5fia8Ck | 0:04
No but I take a video of everything in the house once or twice a year for insurance purposes.
I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread.
I was already thinking of keeping track of "possessions" for the last couple of years,
and not from an insurance stand-point, but more of a 'asset management' perspective.
Example:
I just wanted to know which IT equipment that I have,
and so I can see which items I need to upgrade (not firmware, but sell),
which manuals I need to download and keep, etc.
Also, wanted to know what spare parts I have, etc…
so then, it can stop me buying something that I already have.
Then, the other thing is to keep track of expiry dates of medicines or creams, etc.
Basically, all the tools that is used to run in a corporate environment…but for home life, haha
If only there was some kind of 'SNMP' for all the stuff,
I can quickly interrogate them and have cron jobs to remind me at certain times of the year,
eg. first of each month check firmware updates of all my possessions, etc.
If anyone is using any interesting software to do this, I'm interested.
I know Evernote can do some things, but I don't always favour cloud-based solutions.
Sure here you go
Ummmm no. I spend too much money on crap I don't need to then spend lots of time cataloging it for robbery. Anything major enough I can remember anyway and I trust that getting new for old on major stuff will be a good enough outcome for me.
I lost track of all my OzB microSD card purchases and now randomly find unopened ones in the junk drawer.
The other day I even found a 256GB SanDisk Extreme card, no idea why I bought it lol
I take pictures of everything around the hosue every 6 months and keep on file.
Also a photo of every receipt or keep the email if it's an online purchase.
I walk around the house just recording as I went. Do it every so often and put the video on Google Photos. Easier than photos and with a quality phone in high def you can always make photos from the video if need be.
Far from a perfect way I'm sure but if the need ever came would help the memory process. We have a full 5 bedroom house and garage and under house and attic filled with stuff. It's surprising how much stuff you probably would never think of if you had to make a list.
Would a home inventory app work? Seems to be plenty to choose from.
If I can’t remember owning it, then it can’t be that important. I kind of hate clutter, so if my house burnt down I’d only want to replace essentials anyway
This a very situational topic for me. My 7 year old Fridge broke down earlier this week and Samsung wanted to see the receipt sent a technicians. Having bought everything from Costco, I assumed they should be able to print the receipt anytime. NO - they only keep trasncations as long as you are a member but cannot print receipts from 7 years ago. Samsung refused to send their technician because I could not produce the receipt. This is the first time having a bad experience with Costco and so far they have been good with returns. End up calling the fridge repairer locally and the issue was fixed. Never buying Samsung products again !!!
All my office work receipts are sent to my emails, so i will be either buying from retailers who can sent to my email or buy them online. I am currently trying to sort them out as its a pain when things break down and you have to run around. Mainly the fridge, washing machine, AC and the hot water service needs to be handy. If it's out of warranty, then you have to work out if it has to be replaced or repaired.
From time to time I go through the house taking photos of each room for insurance purposes and store them in an album on Google Photos so they are safe. I also digitally scan each receipt / invoice and save in Google drive for super quick keyword searching and very easy tax time.
Yes I keep track of the number of sheets left on the toilet paper roll
My wife does but not me. I only keep track of my macros for my gains. hope this helps.