Paperwork

[Shellie]

I am so into not keeping paperwork. I'm "paperless" on everything I can be, but had actually thought maybe I should start printing and filing statements monthly. Most of my accounts only store that info online for a year or so, and we have had situations in the past where we need a utility statement from 3 years ago or three years worth of car loan statements, etc.

In fact, we've found errors on our credit that could only be resolved with some statement that's 3 years old.

On the flip side of that, it's a rare occurrence and I personally do not want to continue holding onto everything for 3+ years. I don't even want to hold onto stuff for 1 year. My office is 10*12 with NO closet and with all the bookshelves, there's no room for a filing cabinet. We used to keep one in the garage but it got damaged in our move and we realized we hadn't been really using it, so I went through all those old papers and put them in a tote. I'd like to go through them again and integrate them into a new system (hopefully trashing most of them while doing it).

So with statements, receipts, other papers, etc. I want to make sure there's no mistake and then trash them (except for things that need to be kept permanently and/or things related to taxes).

Thoughts?

[cappuccinosmom]

Dh is a keeper, so we keep. Even things I'd like to throw out.

My system isn't fancy, but it works so far.

I have one file crate for home stuff, and a file box for our rentals. Since these are two seperate units, they are easy to move and if I need to put them out of sight since our living room is our office, it's easy to do.

I keep things in these files for one calendar year. At the end of december, I start sorting, getting rid of extraneous stuff. I keep the years bank statements, card statements, utility bills, and reciepts. If there is a something that is *very* important and is referenced often or will be in the future, it goes into my permanent "Very Important" file.

I get super-sized ziplock bags, and pack up all the things I'm keeping, label it with the year, and move it to a box in the basement where I can get to it easily if I need it. It stays there for a year, and then gets added to a different box with previous years stuff, and when that box gets full, I tape it up, label it with the years inside, and forget about it. We've rarely needed to go back more than a year for something. I figure since dh is the one that schlepps these boxes every time we move, if he wants to keep them, he's welcome to.

[sleepypeanutsmom]

Have you thought about keeping things digitally? My dh had the idea to just scan (with our printer) any papers we *think* we may need later and keep them "filed" on our computer. That way you don't have to physically store it but you could print it out anytime you need it. If you don't have a lot of storage space on our computer you could burn it to a cd. Depending on how much you scan you may just need to have 1 cd per year...way less space than all those papers.

Of course this system requires that you have a way to scan as well a way to burn to a cd. If you don't have this technology maybe a friend or relative does? A few times per year you could go to their home and do your scanning/burning. There also may be a way to do this at Kinko's?

[zoebird]

we are in the process of keeping things digitally here too. right now, we do a combination of digitally and paper. i keep 7 yrs back with my taxes.

but, we are converting to digital, and yes, we need back ups!

[Shellie]

Oh, digital! That's a great idea! I have zillions of external hard drives I'm no longer really using (I'm a photographer and as I've upgraded to larger ones, the smaller ones aren't used much) so I could do this easily. I have a scanner too. I can even scan wireless...this is not currently working but I'm sure dh could figure it out. Then we could save PDFs....nice.