bills/paperwork organisation and storage

MallyGirl

I keep everything in hanging folders - some going back for years and years. A while back I had a good clear out and then 3 months later an endowment matured and they wanted evidence that it was no longer needed to pay off a house. I had sold the house 12 years before! Of course this was one of the folders I had just recycled. In the end we did get there and I got my cheque but I am going back to keeping everything again after that scare!!!

PollyWollyDoodle

Ring binder with plastic pockets works for me - I have a 'current' one which has a pocket for each item eg utilities; credit card bills; car (contains logbook plus insurance, MoT and servicing bills), one for 'Cat' with vaccination record, microchip and so on. Bank statements have their own ring binder, and stuff I need to access less often like pensions is in box files.

I've got rid of the filing cabinet since I adopted this method, they just sit on a bookshelf and take up far less room. Almost everything is online these days; the 'six year' thing relates mainly to tax I believe, as I'm self-employed I keep business stuff for that long, but eg utility bills don't need to be kept, I ditch most stuff after a year. You can nearly always reconstruct things if you need to.

Ask yourself: (1) have I ever needed to access a statement/bill from 2004?
(2) if I needed one, would I be able to find it with the current filing system?
If the answer to both those is 'no', get shredding!

trailingspouse

A two-drawer filing cabinet - one drawer for our personal paperwork, the other for the business.

Hanging files - off the top of my head, the categories include
my car (everything related to it - purchase details, V5, MOT, tax, insurance and repair work)
his car (ditto)
gas/electric (we have a multi-fuel deal, so these are now filed together)
mortgage
insurance (house, breakdown, travel etc)
bank accounts
etc etc

For our personal paperwork, I only keep 1 full year - so, say I had all the paperwork for 2016, I would keep that until the end of 2017. I would then get rid of (shred) the 2016 paperwork and hang on to 2017 for a year.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

I kept longer than year because of claiming tax credits - they messed me around so much and came back with a revised figure about 4 years after I had stopped claiming them. And despite my dishwasher being 12 years old, I still qualified for a free repair under a safety recall, but had a pig of a job finding the details of the make and model number when the label on the machine had faded to be unreadable.
So anything tax/benefit related needs to be kept for longer, as does anything electrical.

Teapot55

Box Files (foolscap size) are the best (link below). I have tried all the usual ways in the past & box files save the most time.

They take A4 paper with room to spare. I open the lid, lift up the clip, drop the piece of paper in, put the clip back down, put the box back on the shelf. The newest stuff is at the front of the box, easy to find. The oldest stuff is at the back of the box.

If I need to keep several bits of paper together, I use one of the pieces (or the glossy leaflet that came in the mailing) as a 'wrapper' to go round them.

If a box gets full up I usually find that I can throw some stuff out from the bottom. If a box is filling up but I don't want to throw stuff out yet, then I can choose to start a second box.

Here's the box files I have

• house bills (gas, telephone, council tax, insurance etc)
• receipts/ guarantees/ instruction books
• current account
• other accounts/ financial stuff
• car
• job
• pension(s)
• tax, national insurance, recent payslips, P60s

Some stuff that doesn't have a huge amount of paperwork can double up & go in with other stuff: health & medical, trades union or societies, voting

Here is a link to the type of Box Files I buy: http://www.staples.co.uk/laminated-box-file-foolscap-65mm-blue/cbs/297803422.html?promoCode=&Effort_Code=WW&Find_Number=297803422&m=0&isSubscription=False

System

I have KonMaried the majority of my paperwork. It took hours, but was very therapeutic

firebubble

I started by moving the bills that I can from paper to email (eg phone, sky, bank and credit card statements).

One of the poundshops near me sell concertina files for paper, so I have one of them divided into:
1. Receipts - household (for things where the guarantee attaches to the receipt, so they need to be kept for at least a year)
2. Receipts - everything else (don't need to be kept as long, eg clothes receipts).
3. Tax and payslips for this financial year.
4. Mortgage - original terms and then the latest annual statement.
5. Credit cards - I only keep the terms and conditions, the latest month's statement, and the actual card so it's not stored in my wallet.
6. Loan - original loan agreement, latest yearly statement.
7. Phone and IT - receipts and contracts only, I moved the bills to online.
8. Pensions - latest annual statement for each.
9. Health - this gets kept indefinitely, as it generally relates to treatment dates.
10. Car - again, this stuff gets kept indefinitely.
11. Certificates - birth, qualifications etc. I also keep my will in here.

Add any other separate categories you need for your personal circumstances.
I generally keep only the latest monthly/annual statement, checking that the the amounts tally from one to the other and then the old one gets shredded.

Then I have another one for 'historic' information such as old tax years (only going back 7 years) - if you are on PAYE, I keep the P11, and a P45/last payslip from that tax year. Statements and letters confirming an account is closed - these I keep indefinitely, it's only one sheet of paper. I make sure that the account number is on it. Original pension set up docs.

I don't keep manufacturers warranty booklets (you can get the info online), monthly bank or CC statements going back years and years. I clear out receipts every year, chucking out those for things I no longer own.

I keep the files themselves in an easy to reach place near where I sort the post, then I can just drop in the latest piece of paper as it comes in. My system means that when something goes in, something else usually needs to come out so I do that as well.

As I've sorted out my debts and stopped shopping so much, my financial paperwork gets more and more straightforward.

Another (sort of related tip) for clothing receipts - I keep them in the bag with the clothing (rather than hanging the item in my wardrobe), and I have a 'seven day rule' ie if I don't wear the item within 7 days of buying it, that item goes back to the shop.

suki1964

We have a concertina file, a fire safe and the bin

Most goes in the bin

In the safe are birth and marriage certs, his divorce papers, passports and house papers

In the file

Bank
Medical
Receipts
Employment
Cars
Pets
Insurance
Pensions

I keep a years worth of bank statements and 10 years of P60s, the rest get binned

I keep receipts for as long as required, jewellery forever, major purchases for the lifetime of purchase, small items until the warranty comes to the end

I hate paperwork with a vengeance so keep as little as possible and I've been lucky that I've never ever needed more then I've kept ( just claimed on a five year warranty as I had the receipt because I knew it was five years)

I go through it now and then and chuck out what's no longer needed. I used to go scan it - just in case - then realised I was just making work for myself

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Receipts: only worth keeping for major, expensive purchases. These are the messiest type of clutter, all those scrappy bits of paper.

Bills: if you have moved a lot, worth keeping the final one for each address. It also helps you remember the postcode of previous residences; you're usually asked for where you've lived within the past 5 years IME. A year's worth of utility bills is sufficient to give you an idea of useage if you change supplier.

Important Documents: worth scanning these and keeping an electronic copy somewhere separate in case of fire, perhaps with a trusted friend/relative.

Bank Statements: keep the 3 most recent, but securely shred everything else.

I just have 2 A4 ring binders for the above, which include instruction booklets for various appliances.

Smodlet

We have a filing cabinet with suspension folders left over from OH's business days. He's all about paper files, I'm all about electronic ones, which works until your one and only computer dies/there is a power cut.

Stuff is categorised in OH's idiosyncratic filing system, which actually makes a whole lot of sense, once I got used to it but certainly house stuff, utilities, bank stuff (why do you need paper statements, Kim, just look at your account online and print/take screenshots as needed?) I guess, kids' stuff, school stuff. I certainly would not keep paper receipts for anything I paid for electronically, don't see the point when it will be there in your bank a/c. HTH.