Home Organization :: Creating a Home Inventory



 

Recently, I had a friend whose home was burglarized while they were away. The thief did not take much, mainly jewelry and electronics; however, my friend had a hard time remembering all the items in her jewelry box and their value.  She commented how difficult it was to pick out what was missing and provide information to the insurance company. 

In a time of stress or disaster, having a home inventory can be very helpful. It does take time to create, but it will aide in recovery of stolen items by the police and/or replacement by insurance after a natural disaster. There are several ways to approach a home inventory: 1. write everything down you own, 2.photograph or film all your possessions, or 3.a combination of the first two with a little extra.  

Insurance policies and the companies that write them want to see documentation for your claims. Having a home inventory will not only speed up the process, but it will also authenticate your possession claims.

Please note, if you have a large collection or items of great expense, a regular home insurance policy may not cover those items. For instance, most insurance companies write a standard home policy to cover theft or damage of the entire contents with a maximum cap on certain items. Electronics cap out at approximately $2,500. If you were to have a large expense of electronics in your home (maybe you like to DJ on the side!), you would need to obtain a rider or a personal articles policy. I won’t get into the nitty gritty of those policies as your insurance provider will be able to address any questions.  

Typically, I like to make a record using Excel for books and DVDs in our home. I also like to keep a list of all electronic serial numbers and their descriptions. If I take pictures, I can import them into my inventory record to have everything in one location. For any collections we have, I do the same.

In addition to a written inventory, I walk through the home each year snapping close-up photographs of every room, making sure to include the date/time stamp. I take zoomed out pictures of the entire room for reference, as well.

If we’ve made a big purchase in the past, I hold onto the receipts for financial documentation. However, with the online paper trail we all have today, your bank or credit card statements would be of great use to document actual item cost.

Once you’ve got everything pertinent listed and photographed, make sure to keep it safe. I keep an electronic record on my computer, on an SD card in a safe, and as an online document. If I’ve printed photographs, they go into the safe with the SD card.

Be sure to update your inventory yearly. I like to do mine at the end of Spring Cleaning, which ensures not documenting items I have donated or sold during the cleaning process. Keeping up to date records is very important. If you spent hours one year building a home inventory and fail to add your purchases the following year, should a natural disaster occur, you may not be able to claim your newest purchases.

Creating a home inventory may seem like a great task at hand, but it will help note what you have in your home and be a security net should anything happen in the future.

Helpful Links:

Home Inventory Check List

Home Inventory App for IPhones

HomeZada

HomeZada :: Revolutionizing Home Management

Last week, I was contacted by a company to review a new online product which will change the way homeowners and homemakers think about their homes. It's called HomeZada.

Created by a husband and wife team, as well as a third co-founder, whom were tired of the countless owner's manuals, warranties, and receipts; HomeZada became their solution to the endless paper trail of home ownership. 

HomeZada is an online app which allows users to store relevant information about their home(s) while managing tasks and inventory, as well as providing vital data if an insurance claim should ever be filed.



Through the Home Inventory function of HomeZada, a user can up load photos of each room in the house, provide accurate room decoration information and associated costs, and even upload individual photos of said items. Should a homeowner ever face a disaster, all this pertinent information is only a keystroke away; thus, making the claims process easier. Statistics note over 70% of homeowners do not have an inventory. Our family kept an inventory when we lived on the beach for our flood insurance policy; however, since our move to Texas it has not been updated.

Included in the Home Inventory function are areas for inputting a specific room's paint color, paint brand, and dimensions. The inventory section comes pre-loaded with rooms and decor items for easier use. A user has the option of deleting or adding to the pre-loaded items based on their actual home. HomeZada offers a quick inventory update section for fast data inputting or editing. A user may also print a hard copy of their inventory list. The Home Inventory's ease of use makes HomeZada ideal for the busy homemaker.



If you're like me, your calendar is always full of family activities, events, birthdays, doctor's appointments and more. I've tried really hard over the past year to stay on top of our monthly, seasonal, and yearly maintenance, but those items seldom make it onto my calendar. More often than not, they end up on a sticky note attached to my computer screen.

HomeZada changes this by taking charge of your maintenance schedules. When a user logs into his/her HomeZada account, they have access to a Home Maintenance Calendar. With a few easy clicks, a user may add various home tasks (gutter cleaning, wrapping pipes, and dusting baseboards) to their online calendar, set a due date for each job, and assign it to a specific family member. I was able to set up the rest of our home maintenance for the year in about 20 minutes. I love how HomeZada streamlines the organization of my home's needs. The reminders are nice, too!

Jake and I recently began our first home improvement project. We are working on restructuring the backyard with landscaping and building an extra suite to be used as a guest room/office. Our ideas are mainly in our heads and scattered about on scraps of paper. I've got a few receipts stuck in an envelope and a budget in my head.

Through the use of HomeZada's Home Project section, we will be able to put our ideas into a workable outline, track our spending, upload associated costs and receipts, and manage more than one project at a time. It's like having a personal assistant for the home.

I'm excited about the future impacts HomeZada will have on our lives. I have a feeling it will make keeping up with home maintenance easier. I'm going to let my eldest upload our home inventory; I believe it will be a good teaching tool in costs of living and home management. I can't wait to download the HomeZada app on my husband's iPhone - then he will know what home maintenance items are on his virtual honey-do list. But what I'm really looking forward to is the absence of sticky notes from my computer screen!

HomeZada is available free of charge, however, they offer a premium package which gives users more features such as an upgraded personalized property calendar, extra help when working on home improvement projects through cost analysis, allowing a user to add up to three properties on the same account, and much more.

And now for the surprise I've been promising! HomeZada is allowing Texas Homemaking to give away 5 premium package subscriptions! I'd like to offer a big "Thank You!" to the creators of HomeZada.

How to enter: First, leave a comment on this blog page about how you think HomeZada can help you! Then, visit the HomeZada Facebook page and "like" their page (let them know you heard about them from Texas Homemaking!).

For an added bonus entry, visit the Texas Homemaking Facebook page and "like" it, as well. Winners will be chosen by a randomizer on July 6th. Good luck!

And don't forget to stop by HomeZada and sign up for the basic application; I promise you will love the way this program revolutionizes household management.

{Disclosure: While I agreed to review HomeZada prior to being given a premium subscription, I wanted my readers to know I have received this product.}