Household papers have many forms: mail, bills, receipts. Conquering the piles of paper makes a home run so much more efficiently.
How do we subdue the amount of paper cluttering our house? Throw away or recycle most of it. Shred papers we don’t need that have personal information on them. Know what papers we are keeping. Have a great system for those. Sort and file the papers. Keep the system as small and simple as possible.
It’s so easy for this paper clutter to get out of control. But with our method, it’s just a matter of following the steps to get it back to normal.
Toss/Recycle Most of the Paper That Comes In
Be ruthless about only a few things in life. Paper is one of the things.
I love saving money, but I know that I have probably used 1% of the saved coupons I have ever saved.
Sound familiar?
I use Ibotta and Rakuten to save money all the time, so I rarely need a coupon that comes in our newspaper or mail.
Those, along with flyers, political ads, and anything marked “current resident” or something similar…get tossed without a second glance.
For us, this is a huge amount of our mail.
Some people will tell you to go through a whole process of calling or writing to be removed from mailing lists.
Seriously, I don’t want to give it that much attention.
And I know that even if I go through that process, I’ll still have junk mail. So, if I’m just trashing it anyway, it’s really not worth the hassle.
Shred the Trash that has Personal Information
In other words: credit card offers.
Oh, and “checks” for $50,000 that are actually some kind of loan scam. I hate those.
We use the Amazon Basics paper shredder. It’s a good price and works just fine for our purposes. We’ve had it for four years now, and haven’t had any problems.
Don’t worry, you’re not just buying a shredder for this one type of paper clutter…in the next section, we’ll talk about our system and show you when we need the paper shredder again.
Know What Papers to Keep
Your situation may very well be different, but this is a list of papers I generally keep:
- tax documents
- any documents/receipts needed for itemizing our taxes
- bank account information
- bills*
- pay stubs*
- receipts for deposits, gifts, or purchases over $50*
- insurance policies
- mortgage info
- retirement/investment statements
- vet/pet info
- vehicle registration/warranties/service records
- medical records, including birth certificates and immunization records
- some of our kids’ school memorabilia and other keepsakes
- employment documents
- menus for local restaurants
- warranties/owner’s manuals*
*If I have an electronic version, I don’t keep the paper copy.
This covers pretty much everything…but there’s something important about these things:
I don’t keep them forever.
In each section below I’ll explain how long I keep each type of paper.
It has taken me twentysomething years to tweak my paper taming system. I’ve tried different filing methods and complicated systems. And I’m pleased with where it is currently.
Nothing elaborate or fancy. It just works.
Let’s talk about the systems I use.
My System For Things I Need to Get To Quickly
There are some papers that I don’t need often, but when I need them…I need them right away!
Ya know what I mean?
For us, that would include
- tax stuff (pay stubs go in here)
- bank account info
- insurance policies
- mortgage info
- vet/pet info
- vehicle registration/warranties/service records
- medical records, including birth certificates and immunization records
- employment documents
- menus for local restaurants
It looks like a long list, but I just have a plain file folder for each one and they easily fit in a file folder box.
And here’s the beauty of it:
- Kid getting her driver’s license tomorrow and needs her birth certificate? I got you, fam.
- Tree fell on a car in the driveway? I’m 30 seconds from our homeowner’s and car insurance policies.
You get the idea.
These are the things I want to have available at a moment’s notice. If they were just filed in a huge folder marked “2020” I would be really frustrated trying to find something specific.
How long do I keep these things?
Tax things, obviously, I keep throughout each year and then use to file taxes.
Once we get our tax return, I stuff all of our tax info into a big manila envelope, write the year in Sharpie marker, and throw it in the bottom of our little 2 drawer filing cabinet.
I also take out the oldest return and shred everything in it. I keep returns for 7 years, unless the IRS changes its recommendation.
Here’s how long I keep the rest of the folder items….
| Long term: Keep as long as the accounts are open |
| bank account info |
| mortgage info |
| Replace when I get a newer version |
| insurance policies |
| menus for local restaurants |
| Keep as long as we own it |
| vehicle registration/warranties/service records |
| Keep as long as we work there…and probably for a year after |
| employment documents |
| Keep for life! |
| vet/pet info |
| medical records, including birth certificates and immunization records |
My System for Keepsakes
Birthday cards, kids’ art work, old report cards….
These can overrun your house so fast.
I’m not as sentimental as many people, so this is honestly easier for me than most of the rest of my household.
We needed a compromise between my tendency to throw away everything and theirs to throw away nothing, lol.
So when my kids were fairly young, probably preschool or Kindergarten, we started this process:
Every child received a flat rubbermaid tote that would easily slide und their bed. We called it their special box, even though I realize it wasn’t all that special.
What was special was that they could put whatever they wanted in there. As long as it fit with the lid closed, they could keep it. I told them that they had to be mindful because they would only get one box.
Over the years, especially at the end of the school year, the kids would bring home a mountain of art work and school papers.
Knowing they could keep what they wanted but it had to fit into the box actually helped them decide what was most important.
Sometimes, we would take pictures of things they wanted to remember but didn’t really want to keep.
I didn’t tell the kids, but I kept one file folder for each child called “[Child’s name]-Keepsakes” and I would occasionally pull things that they were planning to throw away if I felt they might want to see it later. I also put in Mother’s Day cards from each child and things like that.
They’re essentially grown now, and I love that it’s all really well contained. They’re not going to start their adult life feeling like hoarders…I hope! 😀
My System for Bills
My husband, Derek, handles all the finances. {Thank God!}
I’m good with organizing but bills and money just. Stress. Me. out.
So any bills, or items that need some sort of action to be done, go into a box along with our checkbook and stamps.
And then I don’t think about them again until Derek hands me the remnants, haha, of what’s left after the bills are paid.
I sort the paperwork into categories:
- anything that would go into the folders we’ve already talked about such as taxes, insurance policies, or vet info
- medical/business bills go with the tax stuff, for itemizing
- pretty much everything else goes into the monthly folders, described below
I have six new file folders to tell you about. They’re marked as follows:
| Folder # | Title |
| 1 | Jan/July |
| 2 | Feb/Aug |
| 3 | Mar/Sep |
| 4 | Apr/Oct |
| 5 | May/Nov |
| 6 | Jun/Dec |
At that point is when the {paper} magic happens. 😀
I go to the current month and put the paid bills, receipts, and retirement/investment statements in that folder.
Done.
Let me walk you through the process so you can see why this works so simply….
- On June 1st, the May/Nov folder gets moved from the front to the back.
- That leaves Jun/Dec at the front.
- Empty the Jun/Dec folder and shred the contents that have been sitting there since December.
- Any paper that gets filed for the month of June goes into the front most folder (Jun/Dec).
- Repeat the process.
This perpetual system cleans itself out automatically!
It also allows a six month buffer just in case we need to reference an old phone bill or water bill.
All of it gets shredded after six months.
My System for Warranties and Owner’s Manuals
I have used this method almost from the time we got married (more than 25 years ago!).
Get yourself an A-Z accordion folder like this one and when you buy a new vacuum, put the warranty in the V section and then forget about it!
I love how simple this is and because it’s only warranties and owner’s manuals, it’s easy to find what you need when the weed eater tears up or the dishwasher needs repair.
Keep It Simple
When new things come up, I add a folder when necessary.
So when is it necessary?
It’s rare that I need any of the documents that go into the six month folders.
But if I see that I’m routinely needing to pull out Home Depot receipts for some strange reason, then I might consider making a separate folder just for those.
As it stands, though, I rarely ever need to look up any of those things such as our old electricity bill…so I don’t bother with a GA Power folder.
I used to do that and it was just so tedious!
I finally realized that there was no point in it. And it’s been a much more streamlined process ever since I pared it down to the basic folders mentioned above.
~Pro Tip!~
When managing paper clutter, the containers aren’t nearly as important as the process! Use what you have and buy only as much as you need.
Keep it simple so that your focus is on having the paper controlled and moving on with life.
You’ve got this!