In our house we have a locked cupboard in which there is a safe and this is bolted down in the cupboard ensuring we achieve maximum savings on our insurance but ensuring passports, jewellery and wallets are stored in there at all times hopefully avoiding us losing our most prized possessions, or some of them, if we are unfortunate enough to be burgled.

Our safe was purchased from Argos for £34.99 a few years ago and this price has steadily reason to almost £41.00 which I still think is a very reasonable price for the peace of mind that comes from having a safe in your house, particularly if it is bolted down somewhere. This safe can come in a variety of colours and it really is lucky dip which one you end up with. Fortunately ours was black and so when originally stored under a computer desk it was not immediately obvious if turned around and just looked like any old storage container or general bit of tat.

The safe itself comes provided with two keys and detailed instructions telling you how to change the batteries or how to change the 3-8 digital combination to something you are more likely to remember, there are also bolts to secure this in to the floor or a desk or wall depending on your purpose of use and storage space. Keys are provided for such a situation as forgetting your code or it's possible to give the key to someone else to ensure that they can access your safe should there be an emergency. The key will override the number and pop open the lock. To access the safe is very simple you either use your key or enter your 3-8 digital code and this will ensure the double locking steel rods are released and you can turn the dial to open the door and reach your valuables. The size of the safe is 25 (Height) x 35 (Width) x 25cm (Depth) and this is ample for storing cash, watches, wallets, purses, passports and other valuable documents such as driving licences or passports. We have also been known to store items we need to find in here such as concert tickets or vouchers for restaurants and supermarkets just to ensure they don't disappear in the paperwork vortex that sometimes appears in our house.

The weight of this safe is 9.5kg which is ample to ensure that I can move it around the house if I need to and in the days when we didn't have it secured down we used to move it, while full, from time to time with no trouble at all.

While it's fair to say that we don't have a large amount of cash or valuables in the house at any one time it's nice to know that I know where all the valuable or important items are at any one time and I feel reassured that this is bolted inside a locked cupboard hopefully ensuring that no-one could access it or take it should they gain access to our property while we weren't home. I find the price of £41.00 to be very reasonable and I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one of these should something bad happen to our safe. The only small downside I have is that it is not immediately obvious when the safe is beginning to run low on batteries (4 x AA required) as while they have lasted us a few years it suddenly stopped working on us and then began working again the following day and continued to do so for quite a few weeks. Fortunately we still have one of the keys for the safe but if you were a little silly and either left them inside the safe or just lost them all together then you would be stuffed to access the items inside as there is no other way to force the safe to open (for security of course). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to anyone who wants to buy a little bit of peace of mind and it may even be perfect just for storing all your valuable documents in. Also, when we moved house recently it was reassuring to know that we could carry the safe and know where everything urgent was at the drop of a hat. We will continue to use this safe in the future and it's worth mentioning to your insurance company as you may be able to receive a small discount just for having a safe that is bolted down inside your house.