My wake-up call was an iPhone that took a swim in a lake in 2022, and the fix was a cheap fireproof document bag I got on Amazon for like 25 bucks. It lives in a lockbox bolted to the floor in my closet, and inside is a printed page with all my backup codes plus the recovery key for my password manager. Every January I reprint it because codes change when you add or remove devices, and I do a test run where I log into one account using only the paper. The house fire worry is real but a fireproof bag plus a spot that is not near the kitchen is about as good as a normal person can do, and honestly most house fires do not burn everything to ash anyway. One more thing, keep a copy at your brother's place or in a safe deposit box if you have one, because two locations beats one.

A plain rock that turns out to be a tool is way cooler than a shiny point, no contest. Hammerstones and fire cracked rock tell you what people actually did all day, not just what they lost. Most of the real story is sitting in piles we walk right past.