Safes are one of the simplest and most straightforward ways to protect your belongings—especially those belongings that are irreplaceable such as home, marriage, and birth documents, sentimental objects such as a babybook or precious letter from a deceased loved one, or very valuable such as jewelry, etc. A safe is essentially a box created from concrete and steel that is 1) too heavy to run away with and 2) very difficult to break in to. Every home should have a safe—not only do they work well at protecting these precious items, but they are relatively affordable, simple to install and easy to use.
There are many different kinds of safes available today—from fire-proof safes that can withstand 1-3 hours in a burning building while protecting any documents within to burglar proof safes that are heavy, difficult to move, and impossible to break into. What sort of safe you need depends largely on what you will be storing inside you safe. Again, there are safes that are made to be built into walls or the floor; there are safes that should be screwed into a closet, and there are standalone safes that depend on their size and weight alone. Depending on the construction of your home, whether you rent or own, and the size of the objects you want to store, you’ll need to make up your mind about these.
Additionally, there are safes that have biometric locks (that is, those very high-tech locks that depend on your fingerprint or iris identification to open), electronic locks that require you punch in a number, or traditional mechanical locks. All of these have their own benefits and disadvantages that you’ll need to learn about before choosing a safe to buy.
