Help me! I need advice on how to manage paperwork and filing. When you bring your mail and bills inside, what do you do with it next? Because, tossing it in a basket and ignoring it for a year is not the best idea! But, I can't exactly keep a filing cabinet in the dining room.....
The Fairbanks Resource Agency came this morning and loaded up about a pick-up truck bed-size load of CRAP! Two ficus trees, bags of clothes, books, old picture frames, bedding, candle holders, an old coffee table, baskets that held our wedding flowers, but are the wrong size to hold anything else and I just keep toting them around, empty for sentimental reasons. DUMB! They even took the twin sized mattress and frame, but would not take the box spring because it is ripped on the bottom. Whatever. The bed frame is way more jacked up, but I guess they don't care! I'm just glad the room is getting cleared out and I have somewhere to put our suitcases.
John is night flying tonight....which I love! He gets to wake up and see Becca for a few hours, instead of his usual 20 minutes or less a day (on the week days). We get to have breakfast and lunch together. Today we are having Boboli pizza.
And, because I'm sick of pictures of my stupid filing cabinet and stupid pictures of my lunch, I will show you the how much snow coating is our deck and the mid-winter sun peeking through the trees at 11 a.m.
Okay! Off to the comments section you go to give me wise, sage advice on paper wrangling! THANK YOU!
8 comments:
I don't remember how long you're supposed to keep things like tax docs (5-7 years, I think), but for bills I usually keep 6-12mo. What does everyone else do? Everytime I get a new bill, I open it and put it in my 'bill area' (near the computer where I pay them). I already have files labeled for each bill (elec, cell, TV, etc) so then after it's paid it hopefully goes into the file it belongs in. Having the files set up is HUGE - if I didn't have a file, it would just sit on my desk forever.
Love the snow photos, by the way. Gorgeous.
I shred everything. I keep one insurance statement and shred when the next one comes. Same for bank statements. I figure everything is online and as long as I have one current I am in good shape. Everything else we do is paperless (credit cards, utilities, etc) but even before all were paperless I shredded everything once it was paid. We only keep W-2's and I have those for as long as I can stand to hang on to them.
You don't need to keep utilities. I usually hang on to them for a little while, but then throw them away. I keep bank statements for a year, though I don't know that it is even necessary. I shred anything that has personal account information on it. Most utility statements say nothing, though.
Honestly, I pay bills each month, put them ALL in a basket, then once that basket is full is when I trash or file. I am just not organized or motivated enough to file more frequently. We used to keep EVERYTHING in a file, but after talking to multiple people, most of that is just a waste.
I would like to switch to paperless on most stuff, just to save the shredding.
Toss the old bills in the trash! I rip them up when I get them. That might not be THE BEST advice, but I CAN'T STAND keeping crap like that around. It'll probably bite me in the ass later on in life.
We keep tax and bank statments for three years. Each time we have bought a house, the mortgage company or bank has asked for that stuff. As far as bills, I just file the stub for proof of payment, but I clean out the file cabinet once a year and throw them away then.
I keep most utilities, etc for 12 months and then shred. I think we bank at the same place so if you haven't done so already, sign up for e-pay. Love that! Also, for storage (this was Neal's idea) of statements (utilities), we use a binder with one of those plastic sleeves (like comic book collectors use for protection) for each utility. Just put your binder in a drawer somewhere and there you go. Bank statments, other important things have a file in our desk. Back to e-pay: when the bills come in I throw out all but the actual statement, set it up to be paid online, record it in the checkbook, and file in binder. Is that in any way clear? Good luck. I LOVE organizing!
I keep utilities for a year because I believe those places are staffed with the same caliber of personell as the DMV, and I don't trust that they won't make an error in their favor. Everything else I shred, including bank statements, because it's all available online.
Related note: A friend of mine was just robbed (sadly) and gave me some sage advice: password protect your computer and turn it off when you're done using it. The thieves stole her computer and all of the password "cookies" that came with it.
The picture of the trees reminds me of when we went to Circle Hot springs!!! Gosh that's a lot of snow!
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