The LIFEbinder- from my old friend!

My old friend was in the Houston Chronicle today! She has created a system to keep important information at your finger tips in case of an emergency or just if you need to get to it quickly.

This is SO Lynn! She and I used to job share and she is one of the most organized and energetic people I know. This is so cool.. check it out. In their Christmas letter this year, her husband said it was the Rita emergency that caused Lynn to seet the need for this and now she is making it available to others.

I am so proud of Lynn. We used to share a job. She was a pleasure to work with. This was when I had first have my oldest son and went back to work 'part time'- about 24 hours a week. And he was in childcare.. and Lynn was so helpful and supportive to me. But we both eventually knew we wanted to be home with our kids and both got there. Though our job was really fun and we worked for an awesome exciting company.

So neat to see where her talents have taken her.
You can reach Lynn at thelifebinder@yahoo.com


Article in the Houston Chronicle January 11, 2007

Northampton resident helps others get organized
By FLORI MEEKS

LYNN Champion takes organization pretty seriously.

So when she came up with a system for making her family's financial,
medical, personal and property information easier to access, she was
pretty excited.

The Northampton resident didn't really expect other people to share her
enthusiasm, but less than two years after developing a Life Information
for Emergencies binder for her family, she has started selling her
system to the public.

"It makes me feel good that people are interested in being organized,
and I have a product they can use," said Champion, 47. "They're
excited, so I'm excited."

Champion's LIFE binders are meant to make life easier when people need
important family right away. Each package includes a CD with formatted
files for customers to complete, print and store in the binder.

Categories include finances, medical records, assets, insurance,
employment histories, income tax returns, legal documents and personal
documents such as birth and marriage licenses.

If a family member became ill or died, the binder would be a guide for
loved ones, Champion said.

They also can be useful during a crisis, Champion said. She grabbed her
binder when her family evacuated for Hurricane Rita. "If you have to
leave quickly, everything you'll need to re-build your life will be in
there," she said.

Debbie Cantu has been giving binders to family members, and she got one
for herself.

"The way my filing system is now, people would have to spend days
looking through it if something happened," the Conroe resident said.

"Lynn is such a nice person. She put into action what a lot of people
were thinking."

Entrepreneurship is a new experience for Champion. The Michigan native
has worked about eight years as a certified public accountant and spent
the last 14 years as a full-time homemaker. She and husband Emile are
the parents of Megan, 20; Kelsey, 17; and Cam, 14.

About two years ago, Champion attended a personal finance course at her
church. The instructor emphasized the idea of keeping the family's
important papers in one place both spouses know about in case something
happens to one of them.

Champion, the family bill-writer and keeper of the finances, started
worrying what Emile would do if something happened to her. "I started
consolidating all of our papers," she said.

Gradually, she started creating categories for the papers. The bill
section, for instance, provides a place to list account numbers,
payment dates and methods of payment.

As Champion told her friends about the system she created they started
asking her to provide one for them.

Champion sold her first binder package for $39.95 in August, and the
business started growing by word of mouth.

Tomball resident Gayle Mills has become a customer and a voluntary
binder promoter. "To me, it's about your life," she said. "Lynn came up
with a wonderful product."

Champion has not established a Web site for her product, but she can
accept questions by e-mail at TheLIFEbinder@yahoo.com.

Champion, who also is an avid scrapbooker, is mulling over a new idea.
She wants to develop a system for storing family photos that could
easily be transported in an emergency.

"When we left for Hurricane Rita, I wasn't worried about finances," she
said. "I spent most of my time getting my scrapbooks together."

E-mail profile suggestions to Gus Morgan at gus.morgan@chron.com.


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