Under the Sofa

I have a “friend” who keeps her important documents in seven different places. Her passport is in a fireproof bag. Her insurance papers are in a file cabinet. Her bank information is scattered across three different drawers. Her passwords are mostly in Bitwarden, but there are a few written on sticky notes tucked into file folders.

That friend is me. I know where everything is, of course. But if something happened to me, my husband would be playing a very expensive treasure hunt. And Tod’s never been good at finding things.

This scatter of documents is pretty normal, actually. We all accumulate important stuff over time, and we put it wherever seems safe or convenient at the moment. Your residence card goes in your wallet until you need to make a copy, then it lives on your desk for a while, then eventually gets filed somewhere you’ll definitely remember.

Except six months later, you definitely don’t remember. You start hunting for it like a dog with a lost toy. Under the sofa? No. Woof!

Living in a foreign country just multiplies this problem, because you have important documents for two different countries (at least), possibly in different languages, governed by different legal systems.

I’m not suggesting you need to become obsessively organized. But having all your important information in one place, where someone else can find it? That’s just being considerate to your future self and the people who care about you.

Plus, you’ll never again have that moment where you find yourself barking at the sofa in a panic when you can’t find your residence card and you’re pretty sure immigration is going to deport you for not carrying it.