Paranoia

UKX69

blue.peter said:

If memory serves, it's nearly fifty years since I received an NI number card through the post. Being me, I immediately memorised that number. I knew that I'd be needing it. And I'm glad I did: although I put the card in my wallet for safekeeping, it was lost within two or three years. My pocket was picked in a Birmingham pub in 1978.

Because the NI number card was lost, I was always worried that my memory of the number was wrong, and that my NI contributions would get credited to the wrong person. I therefore kept every payslip, every P60 and every P45 that I ever received. I thought that I might get to state pension age and find that I needed to be able to prove to the DHSS/DSS/DWP that I'd paid all those NI contributions and qualified for my state pension.

Similarly, I've kept all sorts of other paperwork related to my employment, various private pensions and the bills/receipts for pretty much everything else, "just in case it's ever needed". I've got half a dozen Really Useful Boxes full of suspension-filed paperwork. (And another one that relates to my parents. Half of it is the stuff generated by administering my father's estate, and the other half relates to my mother - my eldest sister and I are her attorneys.)

Of course, I've now reached state pension age (well, I will in November), and never needed most of that paperwork. My private pensions are in payment, and everything seems to have gone very smoothly indeed. I claimed my state pension in late July, and I've had a letter from the DWP promising that they'll pay it to me, starting a week or two after my birthday. (The letter specifies the amount and payment dates of the first two payments.)

I might not have needed to retain all that paperwork, but one of my sisters wishes that she'd done the same. She had an awful time claiming her NHS pension. Her former employer, a hospital, had been merged into a larger one, and her records had been lost in the process. Her life would have been easier if she still had her historic paperwork. It was all resolved satisfactorily in the end, but it was a lot of worry and hassle that she could have done without.

I'm glad that I kept all the stuff that I have, even if most of it was never needed.

(I'm now are that the DWP periodically checks to ensure that employers are crediting NI conts to the right number for their employees, and corrects errors. But I didn't know that when I started out.)

I too are like you. I can quote my NI number and other data at a drop of a hat and back up digital data to hard systems and cloud. I also keep most paper info in many box files. My wife laughs at me, but very often comes looking for info. I think that may be the reason that I’m suspicious of digital only banks, that could possibly disappear in a puff? 😁

Organgrinder

Gosh I wish I'd kept documents. Eg. I had a loan for a car in 2010 with Black Horse.

Fortunately I was able to track down the date of purchase via a website. But would have been so much easier had I kept the documentation.

missile

Cloud storage is not easy for everyone.
In my role as Volunteer for AbilityNet I was asked to help a lady with her PC and Printer.
After I resolved several issues she asked if I could assist with accessing her cloud storage.

She had uploaded several thousand documents and photos to the cloud then deleted them from her PC. 
Unfortunately they were not filed in any order.
I demonstrated how to open files and suggested that she ought to create a filing system.

Eco_Miser

blue.peter said:

If memory serves, it's nearly fifty years since I received an NI number card through the post. Being me, I immediately memorised that number. I knew that I'd be needing it.

I never had a NI number card. 56 or so years years ago, I visited a Youth Employment Service (or somesuch) office, registered for work and received an NI stampcard, bearing my newly generated NI number, to be handed over to my first employer to have NI stamps attached weekly. Like you I memorised the number, and wrote it down in a safe place too, after all I couldn't keep the official document.

I also kept all my payslips and P60s, as well as summarizing them in a book, so I didn't need to ever look at the actual payslips again -  but they were there if there was ever an official query.