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.

P60, payslips are all online. I download them from my HR system and then save them in a specific folder.

We managed at work to get rid of paper files seven years ago and I don't miss that so I don't miss it at home either. I just got used to having everything electronically. The cloud is paid for and my husband's backs up every four weeks. He spends around an hour a week scanning incoming paperwork from the couple of utilities and banks who we can't get to stop sending us paper.

At the first Covid lockdown we went through 20 folders of paperwork, scanned and destroyed and just left with actually paperwork we physically need but were also scanned for safekeeping. That is mainly paperwork in connection to our naturalisation and some certificates I do keep for nostalgic reasons.

We have labelled pigeon holes (banking/CC statements, car admin, house admin, one for each DC etc). Each pigeon hole is A4 sized so any inbound items are immediately added to the appropriate pile. These are life changing and available as an internal fixture from IKEA.

I also have a spreadsheet where I track my accounts and investments etc as my memory is rubbish. Handy for checking performance over time.

I was recently thinking of trading in our car and was in talking to dealership. They asked for a letter showing my employment information, a copy of car ownership book, tax number and id. I had thought I wasn’t in a bad state but could only find id 🙈

I have passports, birth certificates, tax certs and school report cards in one place but it’s a box and I always think if I had to grab it it would be faff, as opposed to in a bag/ folder

My autism fights with my ADHD on this one, but autism wins. I'm meticulously organised, loads of box files with separate sections, and notes of what dates things expire. For non-paper things I have a Remarkable tablet that everything goes in.

We’ve got a small (overflowing) box in a cupboard with everything house / car / work / ID related in, which I sort out about a few times a year at most. I keep as much as I can paper free and online. I do need to sift through this to find stuff. Passport needs renewing!
Anything that comes in the post I deal with / throw away asap.

I have 'Important Box'. Important Box contains birth certificates, marriage cert, copy of will, life insurance, passports, paper driving licence, etc. Anything vital gets dumped into Important Box.

I then have a concertina file with labels like gas/bank/car/council tax/water and so on. This year's council tax demand, water bill, MOT for car etc gets dumped in the right bit. After the year end it's all shoved in an envelope/file and in a drawer for a year or two until I decide I probably don't need to keep it any longer and I start again with this year's stuff.

That's as far as I go - but yes, in case of fire I could grab Important Box.

My DP does all the admin. I’m shit at it.

Years ago I once had a massive panic because I couldn’t find something important of mine that I needed the following day. I texted him in a blind panic and he said ‘It’s in the blue folder’. I said ‘What blue folder?’ and it turned out that for years we’d had a blue lever arch folder where all the important stuff was. I’d had no idea it even existed and there it was, all the paperwork for everything. Amazing.

This is just one of the reasons my DP is an absolute diamond of a man.

Luckily, we have room for an office, where I have room for a small file cabinet.

The (grown) kids know at the front of the cabinet is a folder with all the important info or where to find it. The rest of the cabinet is copies of receipts, purchases, taxes, insurance, etc. Mail is dealt with within days of receiving it, and most bills are auto-paid online.

Another drawer in my DH's shop has all the instruction manuals or extra bits of things for electronics, appliances or tools.

I tend to do all the admin, but DH has written instructions if he needs to take over.

I run this tight ship and everything in it.

I do it all - from mortgage renewals, to car insurance to MIL’s Mother’s Day presents.

I quite enjoy it I love a good spreadsheet. DH contributes by putting out the bins, handling the morning school run and all the ugly jobs I don’t like. He is also the DH who is as surprised as the children on Christmas Day.. but it works for us. I know where every single thing is, I know exactly what is in our bank accounts.

I work FT in a senior government role.

Sometimes I wonder what he’ll do if I drop dead, but he has a brain and my phone password so he’ll work it out.

How many jobs have you had?

We have four of those A4 box files. One for DH, one for me, one for the kids and one for household stuff. They probably need a sort out, there'll be loads of old documents in there that could be shredded but it does mean I know exactly where passports, wills, insurance paperwork is etc.

We also have a shared Google file that has important things digitally like scans of our passports, or a note of things like premium bond account numbers. No log in details for security reasons on those sheets but it does mean that if god forbid anything happened to DH or I the other one of us would have a list of the personal accounts the other had. We implemented that after FIL died and it was an absolute shitshow trying to track down who he banked with, whether he had any pensions etc.

I have one of those concertina folder cases with all my household paperwork in. Passports were in there a while but I’ve put them somewhere different as we had them in and out a few times. The kids also have a building society passbook key with them as well. I also have a separate entire folder filled with all the DD’s paperwork relating to her autism diagnosis, DLA and now I am doing a MR for pip being declined I’m glad it had that all together. I also have a separate folder for just my car stuff- finance agreements, log book, etc.

A lot of my paperwork is also online but I’ve various folders on my laptop. I update my household budget spreadsheet every few months. I do have s a horrendous pile on the breakfast bar is the most recent paper documents to come in the post and maybe at half term I’ll file it all.

I haven’t always been like this but years ago I did the Marie Kondo clear out of the house and all my paperwork was reduced and sorted out. Before that it was getting out of control.

I also known get it from my dad. When he passed away we cleared his house and found a document folder for every tax year going back decades. Each folder has that years statements, bills, other paperwork. It made clearing out quite easy and it meant we had all his important documents to hand quite quickly when we needed to start cancelling things. He was diagnosed with OCD and likely was also autistic looking back.

Then rest of my house is utter chaos though. I can not keep on top of clutter, dishes, washing. I do also have to keep paperwork for a volunteer role I do. With quite a few resources as well. I used to have a second volunteer role but gave it up.

I even shared my spreadsheet recently with my 16 year old to help explain the costs of running a house - she was talking about when she leaves home and gets a job in the future. In fact I had the 13 year old bring uk when she’s old enough to move out and what she would be spending her money on so I asked her to write a list of what she thought it cost to run a house then shared my spreadsheet.

I was so organised before I had kids. Now I simply don’t have any time to actually get organised. I hate it, it’s stressing me out

I'm in the middle of a divorce. I was always very organised with all paperwork neatly filed away. My STBX was an utter disaster. He liked to keep everything in piles on windows sills and on top of the fridge. He's dragging his heels and being incredibly difficult and I think it's partly because he can't get his paperwork together.

I don’t have any paperwork other than my passport. Everything else is online. I store it in my email in folders and delete and replace when I renew.

I think the house insurance and other very important papers are in the fireproof safe in the basement. I can't remember the code to open it though...

I have a mini filing cabinet thing which has various important documents but in no discernable order and its where the passports usually live, but the other day I was looking for mine and the kids' passports because I needed to photocopy them for uk passport applications and I couldn't find DD's, looked everywhere. Eventually found it in the medicine drawer, not sure how it got there.

Also the top drawer of my bureau upstairs holds various papers like my gcse and a level certificates, court papers and social worker reports from custody battle and newspapers from the days my children were born.

If I had to find something particular in a hurry I would probably fail.

99% of it is online and saved in my emails, the rest is all in a drawer.

I'm loving this idea of keeping so much online. I do everything I can online, but I need to learn how to scan and store things and do folders and all that stuff (I was at school before computer stuff was taught so I've had to teach myself as I go along as my work has also never involved computers)

The NHS app is free and has all your medical history there so do not need manual admin …

@leaderZ doesn’t it only have new letters sent, not past ones?

Yes we have two filing cabinets. I use folders, treasury tabs and mini bulldog clips. DH throws a tantrum if he can't find anything within 30 seconds even though everything is clearly marked. Occasionally he attempts filing and misfiles. I check all files annually, pull out stuff and archive in a box if it can't be disposed of.