If I lose all three, I figure the universe is telling me to start over.
That made me laugh, but also… kinda true? I’ve definitely had a “digital disaster” moment—my old laptop crashed during a move, and of course, that’s where I’d stashed scans of my mortgage docs. Cue full-blown panic. Luckily, I’d emailed some stuff to myself (not the most secure, but hey, desperate times).
I get nervous about cloud storage too, but honestly, paper can disappear just as fast—floods, fires, even a clumsy coffee spill. At least with digital you can have backups in different places. As for passwords, I do the “notebook in a weird spot” thing too. One time I hid it so well I couldn’t find it for weeks… so maybe not foolproof.
Bottom line: nothing’s totally safe, but having options (cloud + USB + paper) seems like the best bet. And if you’re dealing with court stuff and your home’s at stake, redundancy is your friend. Just don’t trust your memory alone—mine forgets where my keys are half the time.