Day 72: How to Organize Your Papers
What: Filing papers
Why: Papers. Papers everywhere. Do you ever wonder where they all come from? Do you have a hard time keeping up on them? Do you end up throwing them in a pile and then realize the pile is tipping over? Papers can become overwhelming if you do not have a handle on them. Here are a few ideas on how to get and KEEP control of papers.
How:
1. Find all of the papers you have lying around the house – they may be loose, they may be in folders, they may be stuffed in drawers. Locate all of them so that in the end, they will ALL be organized.
2. If you do not already have one, buy or find a filing bin that you can store your papers in.
3. Purchase folders. Here are a few label ideas:
-
Banking – registers, extra checks, checking and saving statements
-
Car – insurance policies, maintenance bills, payment stubs
-
Computer/Internet
- Credit cards – statements, credit card info, points information
- Home Insurance
- House – mortgage papers, home improvements receipts
- Loans
- Retirement/Investments – 401(k), mutual funds, and statements
-
Medical – shots info, health insurance papers, health insurance payment
-
Life insurance
-
Taxes – anything you gather throughout the year for your taxes, put in this folder, like deductions you plan to
4. Make sure to weekly file papers weekly to avoid pile-ups.
How to organize your papers as they come into your house:
1. Decide if you can take care of it in 2 minutes or less. This may mean filing it in the appropriate place, quickly paying a bill, or sending a reply.
2. Toss/recycle whatever you do not need. Shred those that have personal information on them.
3. Put magazines and newspapers in their appropriate place (like a magazine rack)
4. Put the rest in a safe place. What you deem as a “safe” place may be different than your friend. This is the place where you go if you have an extra 20 minutes to take care of these papers. Each week, take time to go through this “place.” If you do not, it will only get worse.
What to Store In a Safe
-
Birth certificates, marriage license, passports, social security card
-
House deed and title
-
Vehicle titles
-
Pictures of home (valuables)
-
Extra keys
Confession of the Day: I used to have a metal filing cabinet, but I realized I only used about half of it. I had an old black file storage box that I had since high school and decided to bring it out of retirement. Now I can keep all of my papers in this box and I always know where to go. I know what I have in our safe and if it is not in there, it is in the black box. Living with less means keeping the right papers and not keeping what it not needed.
How do you keep your papers organized?
