Piles of Paper

Spring cleaning continues in my world. How does one accumulate so much stuff? I think secretly I'm a pack rat.

This week I've been tackling paperwork. Since hubby had to do the taxes, I figured I'd do my part too. It's long overdue. What do you keep? Well, who knows? For instance, bank statements. Please don't ask me why we still get these, I've wanted to go paperless for years. Some say keep bank statements for three years. Some say one year. I decided to be safe and do three.

Tax returns seven years. Jeez that's a lot of paper to keep around for that long. When you're young, childless, and single you're looking at a couple of pieces of paper. When you grow a family you've got to keep seven book thick bundles of paper in your file cabinet.

Medical statements. Do you have to keep these? I've been holding on to stuff from twelve years back! Enough is enough, I decided to let them go. From now on I'm only going to keep medical stuff for one year to make sure insurance and payments are processed.

Mortgage statements. We've got a lot of those. Every single one from the first payment we made on the house. Plus, we've got another batch starting from a land purchase. We're keeping all those. Why? Because we heard a Clark Howard radio show saying you should. You must keep every single statement and payment receipt (stapled together) just in case. His theory: on the day you pay off your house, what if they come back and say you missed a payment? You'll have proof.

Funny how when you hear stuff like that you remember it forever.

Anyway, I'm off to the store. My paper shredder blew up.