Do people still use bank safe deposit box these days?

[silentlibrarian]

just randomly wondering around, do people still use bank safe deposit box these days?

I came to a conversation about how people supposed to store valuables and important documents,
and someone mentioned that people are getting rid of their bank safe deposit boxes and opt for home safe instead,
which doesnt seem to be a safe way to store things if you ask me.
They say bank safe get robbed all the time and it's no longer a reliable place to store valuables.

What are your thoughts on these?

 

[shokunin]

Ironically, the banks near me are all "full" of safe deposit holders and I'd have to travel quite a bit to find one available

 

[glenhurst]

Our bank sent us a letter saying they were moving to the building across the street and they were NOT taking the safe deposit boxes with them. They gave us a couple months to come in clean it out. They did mention that they had SD boxes at other branches, but none of them were convenient for us. I just bought a fireproof safe and put it down in the basement. All we had in the SD box were some documents that we really don't want to lose.

 

[Bangor Bob]

They say bank safe get robbed all the time and it's no longer a reliable place to store valuables.

What are your thoughts on these?

I suspect a Venn diagram of the people who say that has a reasonably large overlap with people who think Jade Helm is still going to happen, or that the US should go back to the gold standard.

 

[deonb]

We use it to store printouts of private keys and master passwords.

I wouldn't store anything of physical value in them.

 

[SageBrush]

I was thinking about this issue of important documents recently.
In our case it is photos, and while we have three (!) copies at home, I wanted an off-site copy.

I was planning to rent a bank box, and I still consider it a reasonable approach, but in the end I bought a big SSD and installed it in my daughter's computer. She laughed when she heard why her new drive was 25 GB less than advertised.

 

[CHG-ON]

I have my own safe. Cheap and I don't need to go anywhere to access it.

 

[BluestarE3]

As a retired old-school computer guy, I've always believed that a backup copy of important information should be kept offsite.

 

[deonb]

I was thinking about this issue of important documents recently.
In our case it is photos, and while we have three (!) copies at home, I wanted an off-site copy.

I was planning to rent a bank box, and I still consider it a reasonable approach, but in the end I bought a big SSD and installed it in my daughter's computer. She laughed when she heard why her new drive was 25 GB less than advertised.

Out of curiosity - if you only have 25 GB of photos, why not just copy them online? E.g. to Amazon Prime Drive.

 

[SageBrush]

Out of curiosity - if you only have 25 GB of photos, why not just copy them online? E.g. to Amazon Prime Drive.

Indeed, that was choice #3.

Short answer: aDSL line at 768 Mbps upstream rate.

 

[jaguar36]

We've had a box for the last couple of years, I liked storing stuff like passports, birth certificates, backups, other valuables that we don't need often. However its rather inconvenient and they just double the price of it so we are getting rid of it. I don't like the idea of home safes as they are basically candy boxes for thieves.

 

[SageBrush]

Indeed, that was choice #3.

Short answer: aDSL line at 768 Mbps upstream rate.

Ughh, sorry.

That should be 768 Kbps

 

[anticitizen13.7]

just randomly wondering around, do people still use bank safe deposit box these days?

I came to a conversation about how people supposed to store valuables and important documents,
and someone mentioned that people are getting rid of their bank safe deposit boxes and opt for home safe instead,
which doesnt seem to be a safe way to store things if you ask me.
They say bank safe get robbed all the time and it's no longer a reliable place to store valuables.

What are your thoughts on these?

I think that a bank safe deposit box is good for keeping physical copies of important documents in a reasonably secure off-site facility. The other option is to have important documents digitized and stored in an encrypted cloud drive.

Thieves who go after houses will generally target 2 things: cash and jewelry. Electronics used to be a target, but due to mass availability, most are worthless or not worth the hassle unless they are high-end smart phones (which typically won't be left at home anyways). Given that few people keep cash at home in the age of Credit Cards and Debit Cards, the only physical item at real risk of being stolen is jewelry, and most of that can be replaced unless they are antique or custom pieces. I would say that based on this, a home safe is pointless for most people.

If you are comfortable with Cloud drive storage, I think scan & upload is the best way to have spare copies of important docs. If you prefer physical access, go with the safety deposit box. Home safe is perhaps ok local defense against accidental fires, but unless it is really bolted to the floor, it's easy for a team of thieves to pick up, take away, and open later.

 

[SageBrush]

The other option is to have important documents digitized

I do this as a convenience for myself, but my experience is that authorities will not accept digital copies.

 

[AmishEV]

Haven't used a SD box in about 20 years, digital storage and a foundation safe are far more convenient.

 

[Johan]

I do this as a convenience for myself, but my experience is that authorities will not accept digital copies.

Easy: just print them

 

[Rockster]

I use my bank's SD to store an encrypted external drive that's a backup (Apple Time Machine) of our home server. I rotate this backup every couple of weeks.

 

[SageBrush]

Easy: just print them

If only it was that easy

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

If Trump gets elected I might have to.

So I can have cash drops throughout the country just in case.

But, more seriously I probably would if I felt like the SD box was going to be around for very long. Things these days change too much.

 

[neroden]

just randomly wondering around, do people still use bank safe deposit box these days?

Hell yes. Honestly a lot of people have very little which is worth putting in a safety deposit box any more, which seems to have caused their usage to decline, but it's still the best place to put your birth certificate or other papers which can be expensive, difficult or impossible to replace. Such as original wet-ink mortgage papers or release-of-mortgage papers. And if you have antique jewelry which you don't want to sell, I can't think of a safer place to put it. Mine basically has real property title deeds in it.

They're not as useful as they were in the days of bearer bonds and stock certificates, though.

Bank safety deposit boxes basically *never* get robbed. I can't think of the last time it happened. It's a truly poor target for a robber given that most of the contents of safe deposit boxes are unfenceable paper. They have to be individually cracked once inside the safe deposit vault, and the safe deposit vault is generally separate from the bank's cash vault.