What is in your fireproof box?

[notknowledgeable]

Or whatever your equivalent is.

Following on from a poster saying they don't know where their GCSE certificates are, I assume most people have their qualifications somewhere safe?

All my families birth certificates, GCSE, A level and degree certificates and passports are in a fireproof box in my wardrobe. Also my will and some insurance documents. And power of attorney paperwork.

What is in yours?

Another person here who's never ever been asked for gcse/A-level or even degree certificates. I have digital copies of all important documents including passports and wills saved in a cloud folder called important documents. Also my photos back up to the cloud and ocassionally to a physical separate hard drive kept in the garage.

We have a fireproof envelope. It has our wills, a list of bank details - accounts we hold and their account numbers, passports, birth and marriage certificate. No qualifications as we would just contact the institution for a copy of we needed it.

We have a fire resistant bag https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B078KTY8TQ/ which we got one Black Friday for not much money because it was a bargain and in it we have passports and birth and marriage certificates and the (now adult) children's certificates. Mine are still stuck in an annoying 'record of achievement' and I can't remove them as the print has stuck to the plastic pages.

I needed my O level certificates from 1974 for a job about 10 years ago. I'm not sure you can get copies from this far back, though anyone with them this old like me will be drawing their pension now or very near it.

My mum's certificates were accidentally thrown out in the 1980s and she couldn't get replacements. I have all of mine but hadn't thought of scanning them. I would probably grab passports and photo albums.

I don't have a fireproof box. Paper records are all replaceable, although it would be a faff.

If I had time to grab anything once I'd rescued all living things, I'd grab the hard drive with photos on (although they will be on One Drive soon), my kids childhood Teddy and mine, kids memory boxes. In that order. The rest can go!

I don't think I've ever seen my GCSE results or my alevel results. My degree came while I was working abroad so I assume my mam has it?
No idea re any certificates either actually...other than my son's swimming ones

I was the first person to answer the OP and yes they were talking about scooping them up in a fire. I can just imagine seeing my beautiful home going up in flames and thinking, gosh i wish I'd dug out those o level certs from the 80's 🤨

I actually do have a fireproof bag that I got after a similar thread on here years ago. A lot of people are missing the point-if it's in the fireproof box/bag you don't have to worry about grabbing it, you can just get the people out but then have a lot less stress later if for example you need to show ID documents to find somewhere else to live. Mine is also waterproof/flood proof which is more likely a risk where I live, and convenient to grab if there was some other type of domestic emergency that meant I wouldn't be home for some time. It's also hidden so safer in the event of a burglary than the kitchen cupboard where I used to stuff these sorts of things. I keep all important documents in there, insurance, birth and marriage certificates, bank account information, passports, academic certificates, utility bills for proof of address, and a large USB drive with backups of family photos and digital documents. I think it will be also be useful when I die too as everything important is together.

A utility bill for proof of address is only of any use if it is less than three months old so no point in keeping old ones, I have needed one a couple of times in the last year and this was the case both times.

We have a fireproof safe that has everyone's passports, birth certificates, wills, degree certs and a listing of financial accounts. I put my most expensive jewellery in there when we go away. It's built into the house so I wouldn't be taking it with me. All the kids bar the youngest can get into it.

we have a fire proof box which contains passports, birth certs, marriage cert, will and some CDs of photos (from before we uploaded them all to the 'cloud'.

Exam certs are somewhere in the attic. Never had to show them to anyone and I'm mid forties now!
DS1 GCSE certs are in the filing cabinet as he has only just done them. Filing cabinet also contain medical records, bank statements etc although mostly online now.

If my familys lives are in danger, I can’t say I’m going to be thinking well thank goodness the certificate that shows that B I got in GCSE art is safe.
you can replace virtually every bit of paperwork.
id rather put some photos in if I was going to bother with a fireproof box.

Try to grab your household insurance documents in case of fire (or similar emergency evacuation situation). Then you can contact insurers asap.

All our paperwork is in a 4 drawer metal filing cabinet in the spare bedroom/office. Not sure how fireproof it is but I got it so we could lock personal information away when we had carers working in the house looking after DD.
Everything is in folders so I could easily grab them if I was given 15 mins to leave the house.
Wouldn't bother in a fire though - I'd just get the heck out of here!

I've taken photos of important documents and emailed them to myself.

So there are copies of them with institution/ref. numbers/ grades whatever saved. Much easier to replace then if lost as there is a starting point, no worries about losing bits of paper in fire/flood, and easy to send along to prospective employers when they decide that for some reason a qualification achieved 30 years ago is relevant.

I have a fireproof wallet. Although I'm not sure how fireproof it actually is, I got it from Amazon. It has passports, £100 cash, marriage and birth certs etc.

I don’t have a fireproof box but I would be able to dig out copies of gcse, a level, degree, passport scan from my emails as I’ve sent them to companies at various points over the years via email.

Are you able to share brand names of the fireproof boxes that survived please

@Konfetka Out of my friends I don’t know any that did work. One lost a comic
collection worth tens of thousands. Another factor is that all properties here are timber built, not brick.
The other major takeaway is that your contents insurance is probably nowhere near enough.

When I lived in Japan, we had 'oh fuck sacks' - small rucksacks with things like spare contact lenses, copies of documentation (especially important as foreign nationals), a torch, battery packs, safe medication etc - that lived by the front door to be grabbed in the event of an earthquake evacuation or similar. Fortunately never had to use them.

Don't have a fireproof box, although I do have pics of my passport, driving licence etc uploaded to a cloud account.

Wills and so on are with our solicitors.

Safe medication? Spare medication, obviously.

I have a fireproof box that I store in a wardrobe. I will not be grabbing it if I leave the house in an emergency, it should survive! I keep my will, POA papers, birth certificates, passport, medical cards, insurance papers, car registration form, spare car key, divorce papers and a few other bits and bobs. I still have the birth certificates for my adult children so keep those in there as well.

My children know where I keep the box as a lot of the papers will be useful for them to sort things out when I die!

All of my 'insurances' are online. Passports, birth/marriage certificates can be replaced. I have had to show my academic certificate but it's only the most recent one usually ie my diploma that I've had to show under the assurance that anything before that had been confirmed to do the diploma in the first place 🤣

I certainly wouldn't be grabbing GCSE certs! But definitely the cats!

I don't have a fireproof box. I don't have anything inanimate that I care about enough to keep in a box in case of fire. It would all be replaceable.