Had a flood: Putting a value on your scrapbooking stuff?

[beatlesblonde]

My DH and I are the unfortunate victims of a flooding incident in our apartment. The apartment above us had some pipes burst and it flooded three rooms in our apartment. Unfortunately my tower with all my scrapbooking supplies was filled with water (luckily none of my completed books were in the same spot). The top two drawers had at least a half-inch of standing water while the bottom drawer came out almost dry. Right now everything is laying on trash bags drying out, but I know a good lot of it is ruined. I've been collecting this stuff for years and I don't have the faintest idea of where to try and put a replacement value on it or if I should even bother. Any ideas? TIA!

 

[rlovew]

I suppose it depends on a lot depends on the kinds of suppliesa you are talking about. The easiest value for paper would be between 25 and 50 cents a piece for most paper with specialty paper being $1 a piece. It is a value that would fit a normal craft store value and some may have been less and other more. Packs of paper are generally $20 or I would say $15 if some is used.

After this it depends on what was ruined. Stamp pads are between $2 and $5 each depending on the size and brand with some a little more. I would say if you have things that you know what are go with a common online shop like scrappbooking.com or acherryontop and use it to get a common value for those types of items.

As far as whether it is worth counting depends on if you are getting replacement or actual value on items (if you pay on a credit/debit card I bet you can go online and find your purchases to add up for actual value estimates. If there is no insurance covering it than the value doesn't really matter anyway- adding up what you lost may be more depressing than not.

Good luck with it all and at least it was the supplies not the finished books which were destroyed.

Rebecca

 

[Mom-to-2-Princesses]

Thank goodness it wasn't your books -- because the answer to what they are worth would be.....priceless! And lucky/smart you for having renter's insurance!

Unless your insurance agent has a different idea, I would:

a) group "like" items all together; paper, flowers, stickers, ribbons, etc. And then group the "like" items by size or quality. Take a picture of each group.
b) have an "average" price per item that you get from a few sources. So for flowers have a group for 6 or less in a package, 7 to 20, over 20 and apply an average cost to each item. Same with paper -- if you know it's JoAnns 5 for a dollar put it in a group then count the paper and multiply it out, if it's two sided with glitter put it in a different group, if it's a stack put it in another group. Same with stickers -- group together the $1 a pack, $3, and $5.

You really can't try to pick a price for each item (you would go crazy!), but by grouping you get what you deserve without a huge waste of time.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

 

[MazdaUK]

You poor thing! At least it wasn't book (though in some ways...I guess I spend more time with the piles of paper on my lap than the books but yes, books are irreplaceable!)

I think the grouping is a good idea, also if you had anything particularly expensive which got ruined - anything electrical - make sure you throw that in. And take photos, especially of the speciality papers, to show they ARE ruined (insurance people are not always trusting!). I did this when the freezer in my garage died and I had loads of organic meat not long arrived in it - it made the value of my contents a lot higher than "average" (if it had mainly a couple of packets of oven fries and some burgers, for example). With the photos the insurers took my valuation of contents, otherwise they would have used a flat rate.

 

[Mickey&JoshNut]

So sorry to hear about your flood...I had the same thing happen back in 2009....I found one thing that I think helped me was when our insurance adjuster came to the house, I explained to him about my scrapbooking hobby and I showed him a few completed albums so he could see what scrapbooking was. I showed him a few of the items that we were able to save (including a WDW album that still had the price on it) so he could see just how expensive some things were. I tried to value what the replacement value would be for items. I think by showing our adjuster some of my scrapbooks as well as explaining to him what types of items I had, I had no issues getting reimbursed for the amounts we estimated - I was very conversative in my estimates. I was very lucky that we had a trip planned to WDW and I was able to purchase many of the items that were damaged. I had everything put on a separate bill and submitted that bill for reimbursement.

Good luck.

 

[fireplug]

So very sorry you had this happen. If you have renters insurance, I would check with your agent. They will be helpful because they will probably go after the flooders insurance. I hope everything turns out OK!

Squid