I'm curious. Where do people fall in the household admin and paperwork organisation scale?

[FindingMeno]

I can't lie, I'm always a bit surprised when people can't find their passports or they've expired. However I've recently been sorting out admin/ paperwork and I was quite shocked when I found important stuff in the jumble of papers, and how much stuff I'd just been bunging back in the pile for literally years.
It's made me interested in what is the situation for the majority of others.
Do you have all your paperwork together? Is it categorised and filed? Or is it all over the place, you have to hunt for everything and you're just winging it?
Are people even more organised than this? Could you, at a few minutes notice grab a list of your medical history ? Could you grab a folder knowing all your documents are in that one place? Could you have all the information to hand if you had to, for example, call your Internet provider, or would you need to search for it?
It'd be interesting to know others systems, or even tips.

After many years of complete chaos, and twelve months of sorting ourselves out, I now have an A4 concertina file in a cupboard with all the important stuff in - passports, insurance, pensions, medical stuff and so on. And I MAKE myself put relevant stuff in there when it arrives in the post.

I far prefer everything being in paper form, and even when stuff has to be stored online, the file has a piece of paper in it showing the web address for the documents.

It is very comforting to have been able to sort it all out, one thing at a time, and has reduced a lot of background stress that I didn't even know I was carrying.

We have all passports in a safe and calendar reminders in all our calendars for when they need to be looked for renewal. We also have copies scanned and stored in Dropbox so we can access the details quickly.
All paperwork is scanned and stored in Dropbox but we do as much online as possible. Again everything is downloaded and saved in Dropbox.
Any user manuals etc are all in clear folders stored in the utility room.

Similar to you - thought I was reasonably on top of it - know where the passports are, medical letters, utility bills etc but just this weekend I found a stash of important documents!!!!
New organisation folders bought yesterday!!

I am a self-proclaimed expert. Not only did* I have every single statement and letter across all my accounts, memberships and assorted papers, I also know where random things where that I haven't laid eyes on in years - for example my degree certificate, which I got in the 90s. Needed it and went straight to the box in the loft and got it out. I also remember odd facts, dates or useful trivia about things too.

(*was quite sad when I eventually decided to clear out my perfect, neat and ordered files of 30 year old bank statements a year or two ago).

I just had to fill in a form to make back payments for my NI, and it asked me about my employment history stretching back nearly 20 years, requesting exact dates.

I did not have that info to hand and I’m not sure I could have dug it out…

I know my employment history off the top of my head.

Things are a bit scattered although there's about 3 places where things could be, so a limit to where I need to look. All my educational certificates are in one place on a bookshelf.

I have a huge folder that is subdivided and everything gets put in there... when I get round to it. Usually theres a paperwork pile on the side in the kitchen that makes its way into the office that will make its way into the folder, eventually.
Passports and birth certificates are in a seperate folder of their own.

Passports
Wills
birth certificates and some cash in a safe

pretty much everything else is online
but I do have a back up phone with all my stuff on my main phone just in case I lose it

my son has the number to the safe and all my bank accounts personal stuff emails / passwords and a spare set of keys

I could find passports, wills, birth certificates but it would probably take me about 20 minutes while I check the safe places and remember which safe place I put it last time. I know my employment history, NI number. Pensions and banking (apart from mortgage) I’ve managed to get everything online so could check that quickly.

If you asked me where my latest mortgage statement was I’d probably had to get back to you in 5 business days.

I have a drawer with various folders in it, which are pretty up to date and anything newer gets to sit in a bowl on my desk until filed. More and more stuff is now online so I have a folder on my computer for these. I have a folder both on the computer and in my drawer which includes details of various bank accounts, financial adviser and will etc. I've told my sister where it is and also how to get into the house. I need to back up my computer more regularly and there is also a risk that a burglar finds my folder, but otherwise I'm fairly ok!

We have one too! A massive one we reclaimed from an office clearance. The bottom drawer has cables, the middle one actually has our spare sheets in, and the top one is documents. It works well. We have a couple of boxes of things like baby memorabilia in the loft, but everything current is in the filing cabinet.

What is all this paperwork you need to store?
If you need to call your broadband provider why would you need to dig out a letter?

We only have a very small handful of documents, all birth certificates, marriage certificate and that’s generally it??

I’m awful, most stuff is online but everything else is in a pile in a cupboard. I have folders with dividers already, it would take 2 minutes to sort but I can’t bring myself to do it.

My parents were chaotic in every aspect of their lives apart from immaculate record keeping, not sure why it skipped me! Can only think it’s a generational thing, I know I have most things online so don’t bother.

@WhereIsMyLight “If you asked me where my latest mortgage statement was I’d probably had to get back to you in 5 business days”

Wouldn’t you just look on the online account though?

No.

Pensions and banking (apart from mortgage) I’ve managed to get everything online.

When my mortgage was with my current account I could see it. It’s not now and I’ve not set up online banking for that.

I have a big box where I put all important paperwork but recently while I was filing bits it's mostly stuff I just don't need any more - paper council tax bills from 2 houses ago and all sorts - or things that aren't crucial, like doctor's letters and stuff that I don't need to look at because it's all on my online medical records I could view if needed. So at some point I'm going to get the shredder out and get rid of most of it. I think all that will be left is a couple of death certificates/probate stuff for family members, our wedding certificate, and my degree certificate.

Realistically the majority of the important current stuff would be in mine or DH's emails.

I have a ring binder with important printed out stuff. My son’s medical letters I keep in a folder as my experience with the NHS has been their systems are never working or are very slow, so I kept being asked questions by the different departments he was seeing which could only be answered by the letters I took to his appointments.

This is it - I'm not sure we can always trust online records ( particularly with the NHS)
A lot of older, but still relevant, stuff doesn't show up, and I'm not sure one department efficiently talks to another!

Despite my user name pretty organised, bought a wooden filing cabinet that matches the furniture, was a bit pricey but worth every penny. It's rammed though, need to have a purge soon!

It's interesting that some people have only the bare minimum documents, and some have filing cabinets.
I have reduced from a 4 drawer filing cabinet to 6 'magazine files' and that feels like it was a Herculean task.
What do digitalised people do with stuff like large item receipts, authentication certificates, car documents, insurance documents,P60's, etc? Do you scan and destroy the paperwork?
Maybe it's all about being tech savvy and tech confident?

Pretty good. Safe has will, LPAs, passports etc. A filing box of joint stuff - house stuff, guarantees, instructions, cat vaccine cards, everything really.
DH has a 3 drawer filing cabinet for his stuff in the study. DS and I have a small filing box each with personal stuff. Me work stuff, tax, health,memberships and a few memories. DS (17) has school stuff, health, CTF, etc.

Like most we get less and less actual paper, anything that needs paid or actioned sits on the kitchen island until it's done, as it annoys me if it's there for too long. Any electronic stuff gets dealt with the evening after it arrives.

I have a drawer which contains birth certificates, building society passbooks and my will, a concertina file with documents like council tax and water and energy bills for the year and a big pile on a shelf which is a mix of hospital letters and random stuff ready to chuck or file.

We scan everything important and pay for cloud storage so it's safe and secure. Passwords etc are stored in a safe password management application called Last pass, we both have secure logins and can share passwords with each other. It even has a process for if one of us passes away and the other needs access to their account in case any password haven't been shared for for any reason

Filing cabinet. I can easily find anything. I have a section for health, house, utilities, very important documents, receipts, instruction leaflets... It's really straightforward and I have an absolutely tiny flat.

I never get paper copies of insurance policies. Payslips were all online. I get no paper bank/ credit card statements. I go though receipts regularly to get rid of out of date ones.