As many know, there was a 5.8 earthquake in the Los Angeles last week. My first real earthquake since moving here and definitely a strange experience. What does this have to do with my blog? Well, I’m not a homeowner yet but I do have renters insurance and I’ve been procrastinating on adding a few riders to the policy for certain categories and adding earthquake coverage. So today I’m getting my inventory up to date so I can make a call to my insurance agent and get my policy updated.

While I was packing for my move I decided it was a good opportunity to photograph all my stuff so I’d have a visual record for insurance purposes. But then what to do with all the photos and how to organize them? Well, I use Quicken for my accounting which has a built in home inventory software. Fed up with it constantly quitting and not saving anything I inputed I started doing a little research and came across a simple software program called Home Inventory, and I love it. It’s for Macs only (sorry) but you PC users out there have many more options when it comes to software.

What I like is it’s simple, easy to use interface, cheap price, and most of all organization. It’s set up to look like iTunes or iPhoto, menu bar to the left and content to the right. It allows me to input a new item with location, category, photos, serial number, price, warranty, condition, and any additional notes that are needed. These designations allow me to print pdfs that I can print for myself, burn to disk, send to my insurance agent, make copies and keep at another location, to make sure that my stuff is covered. I can print full reports, photos and all or short lists by room location or category. I love the options but it’s simple enough that you’re up and working right away. No learning curve required to use it.

So this is my friendly reminder to you to take a look at your policy every now and again and make sure it’s up to date. Most of us are always adding new things to our places so make it a habit of saving your receipts for items your keeping and take a few photos along the way to stay on top of things.

In conclusion, the biggest lesson for me in starting an inventory record is really acknowledging how much stuff (crap) I own and the fact that I have to dish out money to protect it and worry about it makes me think twice about purchasing new things. I personally would like to see my list in Home Inventory get smaller or at least stay the same.  For instance if I buy something new I should consider getting rid of something old that it’s replacing.  And if I am just adding something, be certain that I really love it and didn’t get it just because it was on sale. That’s my goal.

The late great George Carlin said it best…

“… That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you’re taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody’s got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn’t want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you’re saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That’s what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get . . . more stuff! Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore.”

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