Ask HN: How do you organize and inventory your non-digital assets?

1 points by mttjj 7y ago ↗ HN

I've been wanting to start an inventory of all the physical (valuable) things that I own. Mostly for insurance purposes but also for general documentation purposes. As I'm sure most people do I have plenty of possessions (computers, TVs, video games/systems, furniture, comic books, artwork, and on an on). But I'm struggling to put together the best way to organize things. I need something that's going to be easy to update and maintain but also allows me to find something quickly. At the bare minimum I think taking photos of everything would be beneficial (I've heard you have much better luck with insurance if you have a photo). But it would be nice to track purchase receipts, serial numbers, and maybe even digital operation manuals (for things like kitchen appliances).

I know there are database type applications (AirTable? FileMaker?) that I could use but maybe that's overkill? Some sort of cloud-based solution is fine with me because it'd be nice to be able to access the data from my phone. Just wondering if anyone has experience with something like this. What is your setup like? How do you inventory your non-digital assets?

1 comment

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maharishi1 7y ago ↗

I use keeppass to keep an inventory of all my digital and non-digital assets (bank account #, car title, tv receipts etc.) and upload it on Google drive. Using various addons I can sync up the data from multiple places, even my phone. You can scan the files and attach it to the entries themselves (although it increases your file sizes). keeppass has tons of addons and tools that you can use. and all its entries are protected with strong encryption key.