Today, we will complete the ninth file slot in our accordion filing system as well as the home ownership category. (Insert excitable utterance here. )

I began the ninth file opening last week with the personal articles insurance policy documents. The last item in this file slot is the set of appraisals for my bridal and engagement rings.

With our personal articles policy, the receipts for our point-and-shoot camera and our video camera suffices our insurance company’s requirements for replacement should I need to file a claim for one of these two items. The receipt for my rings, purchased 13 years ago, would not cover the replacement cost should I lose the entire set. Therefore, I have my ring set appraised approximately every 5 years.

Looking at the date of my last appraisal, I am now overdue for another appraisal. (Guess I have another item to add to my To Do List.)

When I get the new appraisal, I will request a second official document to submit to my insurance company. With the new appraisal, the replacement cost will be updated, the premium adjusted (if needed), and the insurance company will have pictures and measurements in their file.

My appraisal will be filed in this ninth file slot. I currently have 2 other appraisals from years 2000 and 2005. The new 2011 appraisal will be added to these paper clipped appraisals and housed behind the personal articles insurance policy documents which concludes the items in my ninth file slot.

If I had other valuable items covered through my personal articles policy, I would put additional appraisals here (i.e., collection: stamps, coins, baseball cards; other jewelry items; electronic equipment; etc.).

Project complete! All my credit reports/cards, personal, and home ownership documents have a home. Keeping these documents together in an organized system helps me in using time wisely. Retrieving these documents is direct, quick, and easy. Keep working on your filing system to save you money (replacing lost documents), energy (sorting through piles of paper), and time (searching for needed items).

Question: How is your document organizing going? I would love to hear about your progress, even if you are just beginning. You need to start somewhere. Please leave a comment with your answer.

The time has come to complete another file slot in our important documents filing system. Are you doing a happy dance? Come on . . . getting organized is exciting stuff.

I love to be organized. When I cannot find something, I get in panic mode, and I really don’t like it. I must find the searched-for item until it is found. Thankfully, I don’t lose too many items, but staying organized helps me to use my time wisely.

In this series on home ownership (the third category of our filing system), we have placed in this eighth file opening our deed(s), insurance (homeowner’s or renter’s), property tax documents, property survey(s), and title insurance. The next and final item is our appraisal.

Now getting a copy of our appraisal was more difficult than I thought it would be. For some reason, our mortgage lender did not want to supply us with a copy. At the closing, we stopped signing the paperwork until the appraisal was given to us.

I still do not understand why the lender did not want us to have a copy of our appraisal. The payment for the appraisal was included in our closing costs, so we were paying for an appraisal that the lender did not want us to see. Since we paid for it, we were not about to leave the room without getting a copy of that report.

Having prepared this filing system with a section for our home ownership documents prior to purchasing our home helped me know exactly what items to request and obtain at our closing.

Since this request was granted with some tension, I am assuming that the appraisal is not usually included with the closing documents. However, I left our closing with a copy of all the documents I requested.

If you don’t have a copy of your appraisal, you can either pay to have an appraisal done or just wait until you need one. Our appraisal (7 years ago) was $250 from our mortgage company’s in-house appraiser. Personally, I would not pay for an appraisal without needing it. Just know that when you get an appraisal, your copy goes in this file opening.

There you have it! These are all the documents housed in my eighth slot of my filing system under home ownership documents. Next week, I will continue with the home ownership documents housed in the ninth file slot. Keep up the great work, and happy organizing!

Question: I’m curious, did you receive a copy of your appraisal at closing?