How do you organise your mail, bills, etc? Need help!

aimeelister

alex_w wrote:

The cat always sits on the most important pile (why do they do that??!!)

It must be a cat thing. Mine does exactly the same thing! :rotfl:

When the dreaded bills arrive they get opened read and bunged in a file. I have everything set up for DD so just read and then pile in a box in the office. When the box no longer shuts I set about sorting them out into different piles which the cat then sits on.

My bank statements and CC statements and phone bills get ring bindered. Everything else goes in a small suspender file box, where theres a separte on for all the important bank letters, medical, savings and gas and elec and water and car and pay slips then one for other improtant stuff. I then have a box file for all the manuals with the receipts stapled to them.

When there is no room in the files i fish out all the old statements etc. I only keep 3 years worth but every pay slip ever. And they all get shreaded and used for guinea pig and rat bedding!

Philippa36

I have a large bread bin sized tin that lives in the cupboard by the sink and I put all my wage slips, bank statements and any other important documents in there

Fortunately my o/h deals with all the really important stuff and that gets filed in the corner of the bedroom on the floor :rolleyes:

I would love to be organised but just don't ever manage it, although I am ultra organised at work......

:rotfl:

PoshPaws_3

I run my paperwork similarly to lots of the rest of you peeps, but there's a couple of things I do differently.

Mail - gets opened, filed or recycled straight away - it comes from being a secretary by profession, who hates filing. I can't bear having to face a huge pile of random papers that need to be re-read in order to decide where they should go, so putting it away straight off takes a second of my life and keeps my head unstressed. The stuff that needs action taking, gets to sit on top of my monitor until such time as I'm ready to deal with it, after which it gets filed.

Receipts - when I'm out shopping, I tuck every receipt I receive into my bra. That way, when I get home and I've put everything away and made a cuppa, I always subside in front of the computer. So, I just fish out my receipts and update my cash flow and accounting while I'm drinking my tea.

I also have two pieces of paper which are permanently decorating the front of my computer desk. One is my cash flow for the upcoming 4/5 weeks and the other is my Ebay progress list.

The cash flow gets updated by hand as and when something happens - and when its getting a bit confusing, I update it on the computer, print out a new one and off we go again. It means I only have to look at today's date in order to see how much I've got and how much I need for my upcoming commitments. I couldn't live without it, I'd get in such a pickle!

The Ebay progress list details what I'm selling, how much it weighs, how much it cost to buy in the first place, who placed the winning bid and their address details, the amount it went for, the P&P I charged, the P&P it actually cost, when payment was received, whether its been sent or not, whether they've been notified that it has been despatched, whether feedback has been done and whether Quicken Accounting has been updated. Again, I couldn't cope with lots of Ebay transactions at once, without that. I have a huge master list saved on the computer onto which I cut'n'paste transactions that are completed, so that if ever any official bodies wanted to know how much I've made or who I've been selling to, its all there.

Without these systems, I'd be even more bonkers than I am now. :rotfl:

moonrakerz

Scan it and keep it in your PC. (plus a backup copy on a disc!)

nicki_2

IN THEORY ours works like this :

• Post/leaflets gets dealt with straight away,
  • junk goes in the recycling box in the kitchen,
  • post for OH goes on the top of the desk on the left side for him to deal with when he gets in from work (then when he's opened/read it I deal with it otherwise it's just left sitting on the desk :rolleyes: )
  • Bills go in the top drawer of the 2-drawer filing cabinet where there are seperate hanging folders for each subject
  • Anything specific/personal to one of us (like OH's magazines which he might want to refer to over the next week or so) goes into a person specific folder.
  • Anything which needs action gets filed on the top of the desk on the right so I can remember to do it
• Receipts get filed into catergories in a little box organiser (the sort you keep on the desk for filing business cards in) along with books of stamps, loyalty/bank/library etc cards, post its, little slips of paper which have passwords etc on (:rolleyes:) vouchers. In theory these get cleared out whenever a statement comes in, but last time I had stuff going back to January to sort out The catergories I use are :
  • Receipts - cash (kept for 1 month so I can try and see where all the money is going)
  • Receipts Switch N (receipts for things I've paid for on my card, like postage for ebay parcels at the post office, groceries if not paying with cash etc)
  • Receipts Switch OH (receipts for his things...usually I have to collect these out the car door every week, or if I know he spent on his card I ask him to leave his receipt on the desk or enter it in money himself! I usually find it on the desk :rotfl: )
  • Receipts - CC (credit cards receipts, just incase we buy something on it, usually it's one off big purchases like DIY stuff, or furniture or something we want the extra protection of buying with a credit card for) Plus we only ever spend on one of our 3 credit cards so I know we won't get the receipts mixed up
• Anything else gets dumped on the desk and I sort it out as and when I get around to it.

I then have a shredder where I shred anything which has a card number or address or other personal details on.

Blank paper, envelopes, DD's pictures she brings home from school, my governors paperwork, passports, warrenties, instruction booklets etc are all filed in the bottom drawer either in hanging files, box files or ring bingers.

Most recently I've added two concertina box files which is our archive, these have proved invaluable over the past few weeks as OH has gotten someone to look over our taxes for the last 6 years to make sure everything is as it should be (he's recently become a member of UNISON so is making use of all the freebies/discounts he can find :T ) and we've had to look up loads of stuff :eek: BUT I've managed to put my hands on it immediately :j

Now after typing all this out I guess I better put it into action and dig out our desks from the piles of stuff that have appeared

**purpleprincess**

Everything is just piled up and will be dealt with in June!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's a mess! Will be getting some tips from here!!

all_hours

I open or glance at the post then it ends up on top of the microwave until I've dealt with it.

I've got several (very full ) ring binders split into bank statements, ccs, phone, utils and other household. I've also got a few overflowing cardboard folders one with "To Do" written on it and one with "To file" (its a hassle getting the ring binders down every day to put one or two things away). I tend to be very disorganised or very organised. 10 years of bank statements filed in chronological order but then cardboard folders haven't got any thinner in the past month.

Ken68

Suspension files in a locked filing cabinet.
Otherwise Notepad on the Task Bar on which gets typed memos during the day, and printed off when computer closes down. Then that becomes the Task List for tomorrow.