Monday, November 17, 2008

Excess Paper

One project I continually put off, because its a little tedious, is organizing our files. Dave and I bought a black bin to keep hanging folders in to organize our bill statements, documents we want to keep, manuals, etc etc. I knew I had not filed anything for about 5 months so I finally cleared out the bin and went through it a couple of weeks ago... Oh my God... I had statements all the way back to 2004! That is every month, for 4 whole years: bank statements (checking and savings), house phone, cell phone, cable for 2 years, electric, gas, water/sewage, multiple credit cards, car insurance, health insurance, paperwork from the vet, other household expenses, and so on. Now I have a shopping bag FULL of papers that need to be shredded. Did you know that in about 45 minutes of shredding you can fill a tall kitchen trash bag and STILL have barely made a dent in all that paper?!

I asked my mom the other day how long she keeps statements for. She responded "Just the previous month, unless I made a purchase on the credit card that I might have to refer back to, a big purchase, then I keep that statement as well". Right now I have every statement for 2008 filed. Maybe by 2012 I will have shredded them?

1 comment:

Dani said...

We never have any luck with shredders, Chuck always breaks them! I don't think he's patient enough and tries to shove too much in at a time.