When I have to wipe-and-reinstall, this is how I do it:
I also keep all my personal files (spreadsheets, PDF files, text files, graphics files, etc.) on a separate USB drive, formatted to NTFS... that way, if a catastrophe occurs and I have to bug out on short notice, I can just grab that USB drive and run... and I can plug it into any computer capable of reading NTFS (which should be pretty much any computer, no matter if it's Windows, Mac or Linux) and I've got access to my files. Doing it this way also means that even if I completely wipe the OS drives (I've got three drives mirrored via ZFS), my personal files are intact.