Drowning in paperwork

tinselfairy

I have a big wicker basket which sits in the cupboard and contains assorted A4 manilla wallets. Each one is clearly labelled and I have them for council tax, water, cat's insurance, mortgage, life insurance, car insurance and MOT, wage slips, credit card, electric, gas, school info. There are others but I can't remember them all.
Then I have separate box files containing all the household instruction manuals and guarntees for items we've bought.

If post arrives and it's junk it goes into the recycling straight away. When we do have post that can't be dealt with immediately that's when the system falls down as we have no place for that to go. At the weekend I decided that when I go to work tomorrow I'm going to bring home one of the lids to the boxes we have our photocopying paper in. It's A4 size and will make a good in tray.

buxtonrabbitgreen

I should start one of the above systems, I know I should. My kids school stuff decorates the mantelpiece till I get a day off to fill it all in and send it back. Bills go on the fridge magnets till payday. Junk goes straight in the recycle. Piad bills go in the shredder. And everything else is in a huge pile in a cupboard. Not ideal as whenever I need to check somthing like is my MOT due I have to go through the whole pile. I do write what is in the envelopes on the outside for a clue though.

belfastgirl23

I have one of those a4 plastic filing boxes with the handle on top. I keep all important stuff in this in seperate files- car stuff, insurance, electric, gas, passports, driving licences, bank and credit card statements, house stuff etc. I don't get around to filing all the time so new stuff goes on top of it until I can't get the lid to close and then I take a few minutes to file. When I can't get anything else into it (about once a year or so) I go through it and throw out anything more than a year old or not likely to be needed. Online banking has helped a lot with this though!

If you have kids you would probably need a seperate box for school stuff etc...

Nix143

Q. How long do you keep bills - electricity, water, etc?

I am loathe to throw anything out which means I have years worth of paper stacked everywhere

tanith

I sort stuff as it comes through the door , junk into the recycle box , anything with my name and address goes straight in the shredder, bills go upstairs on the shelf above the computer to either get paid online or filed in its appropriate slot in my Arch Lever folders.... I keep stuff for 2 yrs and then shred.... I file stuff from the shelf at least every 2 wks and it all keeps neat and tidy...
my OH's stuff gets left on the kitchen table for about 2 weeks some of it unopened and then when I can't stand it anymore I shove the whole lot in the top drawer of his bedside cupboard and then when he wants something he has to sort through it , IT TAKES HIM AGES.....:rotfl:( I do filter out anything I think is VERY IMPORTANT)

lil_me

I have - One filing cabinet (small) and boxes with those cardboard files in you get in schools for putting paperwork in. The boxes are the ones you get flat packed with a lid and build yourself but only just got those, any box was used before just decided to tidy it up a bit.

Filing cabinet is sectioned off for urgent (anything that needs dealing with before can be filed) household bills, receipts, car, kids, medical, insurances, bank statements and one section for official documents like birth certificates, passports, other things that needed sometimes but never throw away etc etc.

At the end of each year I go through each section for say bank statements and put all the previous years statements in date order into one of the cardboard files or in an envelope, put a sticky label on sealing it with 'statements account number xxxx 2006' etc on it then it goes into a box under my bed. I keep them then for about 3 years for household bills etc, 6 years for bank statements/employment stuff, if I do need to backtrack for any reason, they are there and organised. The kids also have a box with things from school, reports, medical stuff etc in.

The box and envelopes is what I used before I got the filing cabinet.

Dotmatic

I have a similar system to what others have mentioned:

Anything urgent that needs dealing with I attach to a clipboard near my computer which is pretty central to the house, then junk mail goes immediately to the shredder/recycling. Non-urgent then goes into a drawer where once every 2 or 3 months I empty it out onto the dining room table and sort into ring binders for bills/insurance/mortage etc, then when they are full I archive them with treasury tags and place in labelled boxes in the loft. The ring binders are kept in the top of the wardrobe.

The quantity of paperwork drives me mad because I'm always unsure what has to be kept and what you can chuck away. :rolleyes:

Strickers_2

I have a filing cabinet which we've had for years. Bit extreme I guess but you could get one from a office clearance place or something... Anyway, I have one draw for things in my name, one for things in DH name and one for things in joint name. Each has folder that contain each thing e.g. credit card, elec, water etc. etc. When stuff comes through the door I open and deal with most things there and then i.e. chuck out the junk mail. Then I leave everything that needs dealing with in a pile next to my bed so that when I go up to get changed in the evening etc. I always see it. Everything that doesn't need dealing with goes in a pile on the stairs and when I'm on the way to the office I pick it up although I don't actual file it away until I can be bothered.

Re. how long to keep things, I'm a solicitor and most claims can only go back 6 years i.e. like the bank charges reclaiming. However I did hear that some problems can be taken back 10 years. So I keep mine that long. Once I have closed a credit card for example though I will put all the papers in a sealed envelope and mark on the front what they are. That way they don't get confused with things that are current.

hope that helps?!

patwa_2

I can totally understand where you're coming from. And it's the 'categories' that have just one letter that are the worst. Also deciding how long to keep stuff - do I need the claim awards letter for Uni that's now three years old, probably, but then again probably not. Do I need my '3' PAC which is over a year old and now expired, maybe not but maybe I should keep it just to be safe?

Being a techie kind of person, I thought of OCR'ing all the documents and then storing them on CD/DVD. Problem is many companies still want original paper copies of documents if a dispute ever comes up, printed copies aren't good enough, grrr.

Got a room full of papers, overflowing into the hall outside.

H.

elljay

Does anyone have a foolproof way of decluttering paperwork? I have twice in the last couple of weeks had to deconstruct my spare room, firstly to find the documents I need for a CRB check, and then to find the things I needed for my tax return. It's ridiculous, but I'm sitting here with a payslip from 2007 in my hand thinking, should this go in the work? or finances? or tax files? I can't make decisions and even when I do, next time I come to file stuff I've forgotten where they go. .....and am now beginning to drown. Help please, how does your system work? Where do you file a payslip?
Ta
Liz