How many standard filing cabinet drawers of life admin paperwork do you have?

[notnowmarmaduke]

I had 5. I have spent the day sorting and shredding and have got it down to 4 and a bit. That still seems a lot.

Insurance documents, receipts, instruction booklets, certificates of training, exam results, bank statements (only 6 months worth) loan agreements, work contracts. A few (very few) sentimental drawings and cards, payslips, a few records from years ago I am requited to keep for legal reasons. And so on and so on and so on.

I was hoping to get it down to about 2 or 3 and reclaim some space, but that has not happened.

What do you have? What should an adult have?

In the poll, all drawers are standard filing cabinet size.

None.

I've got a box file with house deeds, TV licence, v5s, ISA paying in books, stuff like that. About 4 instruction manuals in a kitchen drawer, and everything else - bank statements, payslips, insurance docs, medical stuff is all online either on my emails or on an app. I am the least organised person ever, I regularly have to go round the house throwing out empty envelopes, and even I've got no idea how you've managed to accumulate an entire filing cabinet full of stuff?!

I have 2 power of attorneys so have a drawer each for them and 2 drawers for me and DH. My annual weed out and shred is overdue!

Insurance documents, receipts, instruction booklets, certificates of training, exam results, bank statements (only 6 months worth) loan agreements, work contracts. A few (very few) sentimental drawings and cards, payslips, a few records from years ago I am requited to keep for legal reasons. And so on and so on and so on.

Why on earth are you getting hard copies of all of these?

Of your list I get insurance documents, bank statements, payslips, P60s online.

I keep important documents like birth and marriage certificates, passports and education certificates in an expanding folder in the safe, and instruction manuals in two box files.

DH has a folder for all his medical stuff, and we have a storage box in the loft with annual statements from investments.

Why do you have so much stuff?

I have 3 box files (could probably fit the contents in a filing cabinet drawer) with DH's business paperwork, things like certificates and kids red books, cat paperwork, rent agreement, car stuff. Also have a small folder with things I might need urgently like marriage certificate, passports, P60.
Anything that can be online I keep that way. I could probably throw more out and will do soon as we're moving.

I just sorted mine and I’ve got two expandable folders of life admin and one plastic file of instruction booklets. Filing cabinet went to the tip. So well under half a drawer. I’m 50.

We have almost zero paperwork these days, much prefer digital. Everything fits in one of these apart from qualification certificates which have their own file to keep them nice. amzn.eu/d/0iAV6YVC

Each of us has a lever arch file with important documents in it.

Apart from out child with an ehcp. He has four lever arch files full, plus it's all saved online.

One concertina file and one file box for DDs stuff. Everything else is online. I haven’t had a paper bank statement in years.

For all you online people: if you died / were in a coma in hospital, would your 'online paperwork' be accessible to a third party sorting your estate or whatever? Would they be able to find your assets, access things etc?

None.

1 alphabet card box file and one drawer in sideboard. Keep as little as poss. Marriage cert, birth certs passports. Not much else.

The alphabet file is mainly full of DD’s EHCP stuff.

I’m 60. Never kept much stuff. If it’s that important the sender will have the info. It’s all online now anyway.

DH and I both have access to everything. Information is also held by lawyers and accountants.

But why would they need it?

You wouldn’t be able to access someone’s bank account unless you had permission or were dead. If you’re dead the solicitor unlocks everything.

I've got one 3 drawer cabinet and go through it every now and again and shred anything no longer needed.
Most stuff is on my computer now (with cloud back up) so the amount of paper stuff is very little.

They really need very little, DH works for a bank and deals with this all the time. Information is very easily shared these days. It is not necessary to keep much at all.

DH lost a parent recently who hadn’t shared anything and was mostly online. It was still easily sorted out.

But yes DH has access to everything too.

The solicitor has to know where things are to unlock them though.
If someone goes to my filing drawers they can easily see which companies I have assets with, so they know who to contact. They can also see a copy of my will and poa.

When everything is online behind passwords etc you have to know how to get in and that it exists. Whereas a filing cabinet is obvious.

That’s mad! We have one document folder between DH and I. Rarely get any letters or paper copies of anything.

But you can just give him bank cards?

They just unlock it all online.

But we have no assets. Apart from joint savings.

We have 1 filing box. It’s a RUB filing box. It has the passports, birth certificate, car docs, mortgages in and our qualification/dbs certificates in. Nothing really gets added to it. All of our bills/statements are emails.

In the attic I have a big box (years and years ago you could buy Huggies nappies in a big plastic toy box) filled with red boxes, cards when they were born, school reports, drawings etc. also have another box in the attic a lot smaller with letters to each other, wedding cards, etc.

My OH and son also share our family dropbox folder and we have a "common" family password for hard drives, laptops, etc., so we're pretty well covered for that. Unless, of course, all three of us died in the same incident/accident. But, in that case, none of us would be here to be bothered about who sorts out the estate!

I don't see it any different to say, a house fire or explosion or major house flood. In that kind of catastrophic event, the paperwork would be mostly destroyed, so you'd be in the same position as if your scanned documents were only on a computer that was either destroyed or where no one knew the password.

People dealing with estates professionally such as solicitors have procedures in place for sorting out the affairs where record keeping is poor/incomplete, etc - they're used to putting the pieces together. It's partly why solicitors fees seem so high, as they spend a lot of time sorting through things, bridging the gaps, enquiring with banks, insurance firms, etc as to whether there were any open accounts/policies, etc.

When I was sorting my late mother's estate, there were a few bank/building society passbooks that were very old, some where they'd been closed and a large balance transferred which I couldn't trace, etc., some very old life insurance certificates. I just contacted the banks/insurers involved, and most were very helpful in doing a quick search to tell me which accounts were still open, when others had been closed, etc. Yes, a bit of chasing around and some more helpful than others, but overall, not to much hassle to put all the pieces together.

I big old filing cabinet with 2 drawers in a cupboard under the stairs.

But it isn't just bank cards is it?
It is for example premium bonds, shares, DFS credit agreements, ISAs, ...

Two and some box files in the cupboard under the stairs. That's not counting the piles of current paperwork waiting to be sorted!!

Yeah we had a massive house fire. Everything was destroyed. All paperwork.

Just phoned up the insurance company. Don’t remember needing anything else. Got new birth certs and passports. Car insurance sent us new docs.

5 drawers spread across 2 filing cabinets and several large lever arch files. Once divorced/moved i will be able to get rid of approximately half, possibly more. Most are to do with the house and stbx's multiple employments/pensions/hobbies. That's one good thing about paperwork instead of online😉

2 box files. One has birth certificates, qualifications etc and the other has documents that are used more regularly such as cat vaccinations. Everything else - payslips, TV license, bills is all online.