Paperwork

[ZakareyasMama]

Okay this is my least-favorite thing to organize because there's not much in the way of prettiness I can add to it, but, alas, my office space is overflowing into my kitchen 

I'm gearing up for a major overhaul of my home office and I want to know... what type of organization/filing system do you use? What type of paperwork do you keep and for how long? 

I want to move all of my bills over to electronic pay and I spent some time on the phone today asking to be taken off of credit card/department store mailing lists. Hopefully that will cut down on the pieces of paper constantly piling up. 

Send me some inspiration!

[adorabelle]

http://ultimatemoneyblog.com/record-retention-guidelines  Here's a guideline I use for paperwork. I hate having to keep things!

I shred most bills that we get paper billed for.  Most of ours are set up on electronic billing and we can print them if we ever need to.

[GoGoGirl]

I have a shelf full of 3 ring binders that I use for our paperwork.  I have binder each for taxes, bills, investments, bank accounts, insurance, medical records, house/apartment paperwork, and then a few I can't remember.  I use separators in the binders to divide them up, like in the bills binder, there's a section for Con Ed, cable, cell phones, etc.  I keep our taxes forever, everything else I keep about 12 months worth.

[bignerpie]

I use the standard filing cabinet system with hanging files and folders. I pay nearly everything online and get online bank statements, so I don't have much paperwork to deal with. 

Here's what I have in mine. The first one is the hanging file and then the items after the dash are folders inside. I also have them color-coded. Green for finances, red for vehicles, yellow for owners manuals, purple for household stuff. I'm definitely Type A... 

Taxes

- one folder for each of the past 7 years of income taxes

- personal property taxes 

- real estate taxes

Income/Receipts (my husband needs to save this sort of stuff for tax time because of his work situation)

- one folder for paycheck stubs from each employer

- receipts

Accounts

- one folder for each bank account

- one folder for each investment account

Insurance (I only keep the current policy. When we get new policies, I shred the old ones and replace.)

- auto

- home

- life

- health

Loans

- one folder for each vehicle

- mortgage

Credit Reports

- one folder for my report and one for my husband. I get the free report for each of us every year and shred the old one.

Bills (These are odd bills that aren't paid monthly, like doctor visits for example.)

- Current Bills

- Paid

Vehicles

- one folder per vehicle (these are things like service records, maintenance logs since we do our own oil changes and that sort of stuff)

Owners Manuals

- Household (kitchen appliances, etc.)

- Tools (my husband has a huge collection of tools, so his manuals get their own folder)

- Kids

Food

- Recipes To Try

- Recipes To File

- Restaurant Menus

And then each household member (including our dogs for vet/shot records) have their own hanging file for miscellaneous paperwork.

I probably save paperwork longer than I should. I keep owners manuals until we get rid of the item. I keep vehicle records, including loan paperwork, until we get rid of the vehicle, even if the loan is long paid. I save bank account paperwork until the account is closed. The paycheck stubs and receipts, I usually keep for 2-3 years in case we get audited. Here's another link with record retention guidelines: http://www.onlineorganizing.com/ExpertAdviceToolboxTips.asp?tipsheet=24

I said at the beginning of my post that I don't have much paperwork, but it sure does seem like a lot after I list it all out!