Oscraps

How long do you keep paperwork for filing?

faerywings

The Loopy-O
CHEERY O
I hate filing and sorting through paperwork. Really, who doesn't? ;) Even when I convince myself to deal with the piles for say, 15-20 minutes, it doesn't put a dent in the amount of papers I have. This morning, I decided that my goal was to work my way through some of the papers on my desk and folders in the cabinet.
I shredded a whole bunch of papers that we don't need anymore. Pets that died *years* ago. Cars we don't own anymore. I started to go through the folders of receipts and instruction manuals and had to give up. *waves white flag* I had information for sooooooo many coffeepots. Probably 10-15 *years* worth of coffee pots. Iy yi yiii! We go through a lot of coffee pots. Obvs. LOL!
I had to give up after a while because my eyes started to roll around and everything was getting blurry. #crazy
I know that supposedly you are supposed to keep 7 years worth of your tax papers. (Is that still a thing now that everything is digitized?) Why do I have things from when we first moved here 25 years ago?

Have you done any filing of paperwork recently? Did you get any farther than I did? I hope so.
What was the weirdest thing you found? How about the oldest?
The weirdest isn't all that weird, but just the sheer number of coffee pots. That's weird.
The oldest was a folder of typewritten letters of recommendation from when I graduated college in 1992. Can't get rid of them if I ever want to get a job teaching again. :rotfl:
 

VickiStegall

Administrator
Designer
CHEERY O
I just last night went through some papers that had been stored in a box in the closet from 2008! It was Dr visit and Rx paperwork for diet pills of all things! Why did I save that? Pretty sure it wasn't tax deductible and the Rx paperwork was the same thing over and over and over because it was weekly. Ridiculous!
#crazy-2
 

LSlycord

Well-Known Member
Oh my...first of all @faerywings we are coffee pot sisters. #coffee-4 We are on our third one in this house...and we have been in this house 3 1/2 years.

Papers...before we moved from Iowa I went through and shredded more papers than I can even think about. For some reason, I had kept all of my parents tax returns and lots of old canceled checks. Mostly things Mom had kept and she had been dead 8 years at the time...lots of tax returns from the 90's. Those were probably the oldest. Then I recently purged a lot of stuff here. I made my oldest niece take her basketball stuff...programs and newspaper clippings and pictures when she was here last spring. The stuff was from age 10 to 18. She will be 33 in June.

I've recently purged lots of papers...but, there is still room for lots more stuff to get pitched. Might lose a few more items in the move.
 

faerywings

The Loopy-O
CHEERY O
@LSlycord Coffee Pot Sisters for sure! We have canceled checks in boxes in the attic too. I keep saying that I have to bring them down and shred them, and they never seem to make it out. *G*

@VickiStegall Rxs from 2008! That is definitely up there with old and unnecessary LOL!
 

bkasko

Well-Known Member
CHEERY O
My hubby is terrible about keeping old paperwork, he used to be a contractor so moved around the country a lot and he still has paperwork from apartments he rented years ago.
 

AZK

Queen of the Universe
CHEERY O
There's nothing like downsizing from a large house to a much smaller condo to force you to weed through unnecessary things, including paperwork! I have a shredder and throw stuff to be shredded in a pile next to it. Other papers that aren't sensitive go into the recycling bin. Having said that, I know I need to go through my file cabinet and thin it out a bit.
 

AnaSantos

The O is Awesome
CHEERY O
Well, hubby does that work for me from time to time, I only have to get rid of all the paperwork produced during the school year and the manuals that are already out of date. Even so, it is not an easy task. :giggle4:
 

ClaireG

Well-Known Member
CHEERY O
We encountered this mess when we were moving from NYC to Tampa 2 years ago. We decided to only keep what we needed (immigration docs, tax, UK documents, current pet info, health info, etc). Everything else I took to work and popped it in the professional shredder. Now we only keep what we need and we bought a good-looking filing cabinet. We file every Friday before we have our Friday night party (I craft, he mixes music) and we are keeping on top of it. Long may it last.
 

faerywings

The Loopy-O
CHEERY O
We encountered this mess when we were moving from NYC to Tampa 2 years ago. We decided to only keep what we needed (immigration docs, tax, UK documents, current pet info, health info, etc). Everything else I took to work and popped it in the professional shredder. Now we only keep what we need and we bought a good-looking filing cabinet. We file every Friday before we have our Friday night party (I craft, he mixes music) and we are keeping on top of it. Long may it last.
How awesome that you turn Friday Night Filing Night into a little pre-party!
Well, hubby does that work for me from time to time, I only have to get rid of all the paperwork produced during the school year and the manuals that are already out of date. Even so, it is not an easy task. :giggle4:
School papers generates more paperwork than almost anything else in the world! :D
 
Top