You have gallons of water to drown your kidneys, cases of tuna fish to feed every stray cat in the block, and enough Band-Aids to rival a trauma center’s stash. But is your wallet ready to cover losses after the Big One hits? Maybe it’s easier to buy a ready-to-use first aid kit than to recharge the digital camera’s battery to create an inventory of one’s valuables. Or that it’s less painful to pull $14.99 out of one’s wallet to buy a flashlight than to shell out $$$ for an insurance policy. But for whatever reason, getting ready financially seems to be a low priority in disaster preparedness.
Perhaps you're expecting Uncle Sam to save you from financial doom. Bad news: he's not a member of the Justice League 
. FEMA individual assistance is capped at $26,200 . Try rebuilding your Bay Area cottage with that!
There are things you can do to be financially prepared for a disaster. Like do an inventory of your valuables. Use a digital camera or camcorder to take pictures of your property instantly. Burn the images to a CD or move them to a flash drive . Besides being able to fit a gazillion bytes, a flash drive can be attached to a keychain or worn as a fashion accessory . There are other things you can add to your flash drive: copies of your financial information and insurance policies. No flash drive? Store important info in your MP3 player . Many of these devices can actually hold non-audio data.
Technology is a great tool for financial readiness. If you don’t know how to create an inventory of your property, there’s software to help you get started. KnowYourStuff.org, a sister site of the Insurance Information Institute , offers free home inventory software that you can download.
The American Red Cross has practical guidelines on financial preparedness . Check out Bankrate.com’s financial disaster preparedness kit , too. If you own your business, here’s a useful feature on Allbusiness.com entitled Special Report: Preparing for Disaster , with articles such as Plan for the Worst for Your Home-Based Business and Protect Your Business Assets from Disaster .
And then there’s the matter of insurance. Not quite sure about the ins-and-outs of insurance policies? Read this neat article from Smartaboutmoney.com (not to be confused with Smart Money magazine, Smartaboutmoney.org is a project of the National Endowment for Financial Education ). It takes away the mystery behind all the fine print, and shows how to choose the right insurance coverage, how to understand an insurance policy, and what one needs to know about filing a claim.
Oh, one last thing, always have cash on hand. And I mean CASH. With or without a disaster, a $20 bill won't take you very far nowadays.
Sure, it’s fun to check out cool emergency gizmos than to spend a weekend dealing with checklists and documents. But look at it this way: with water, canned tuna, Band-Aids AND your finances all lined up, you won’t have to wait for a superhero to save you from the Big One.
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