How do you organise your paperwork?

[frumperina]

We don't work from home or anything like that, I mean just everyday paperwork, certificates and bank statements.
It just seems to accumulate and whatever system I come up with fails eventually and I still end up with mountains of papers on my desk.I am fed up with it.
Please inspire me with tales of your supremely organised filing systems.

takeonboard

I open and deal with each letter as it arrives, then I file it in plastic pockets in a lever arch file. It wouldn't shut last month, I found at the back of each pocket bills and receipts from 2006, 2 house moves ago

cat64 My husband doesn't even open his bank statements!

Currently the pile on the desk is actually sorted 'to do or file' stuff I just need to improve my filing system. so I can actually be arsed to file it

I'm very glad I don't have school stuff to deal with yet, that sounds like a whole new level of fun!

I give MrNC a day or two to open letters before doing it myself - usually in front of him so he can't complain about invasion of privacy. We're talking bank stuff and all the boring mail with lots of leaflets needing chucking, which would take him forever - anything of actual privacy or sentiment like cards I poke him with until he opens himself.

One advantage of ds's nursery not being the best at communication is there's not much paperwork - though we did have to go over 2 years of invoices to prove we didn't owe them money recently. MrNC did pull out 3 sheets of homework from his pocket the other day - ds gets one a week as an optional thing, more so we know what he's been doing. I pointed out we'd need a better system when ds starts school!

At some point I need to finish sorting out MrNC's pensions - he has 11 of the sodding things, some of which may have been missold, and over half of which he started the paperwork to get merged together. And all the companies have changed their names at least once...
The bumf they send is probably half our filing!

I have a concertina folder which I keep out on our dresser. I have (dymo) labelled the tabs: URGENT Action, This Week, Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr... and File. Everything gets written on the calendar before it goes in there and I sort through it weekly actioning, moving things up and recycling/filing as required - it means I can always lay my hands on wedding invites, discount vouchers etc.

For my filing I have a 2 drawer filing cabinet with the following categories: Employment, Education, Car, Bank, Mortgage, Pension, Other Finances, Legal, Home, Utilities, Manuals, Lifestyle etc

Have the same problem as notcitrus with pensions and associated paperwork!

oh and I also have a folder which has marriage certificate, birth certificate, driving licence and passport sized pockets in it bought from Lakeland but I don't think they sell it anymore.

We have a basket in the kitchen which EVERYTHING goes in and once a week we sort/pay/throw/file in one folder etc

I saw some plastic boxes with suspension files in them in Rymans today. All the convenience of a filing cabinet but can still fit in the bottom of the wardrobe. I think I like them.

I don't.

I have one of these but only use 2 drawers; if I were better at chucking stuff I could probably get away with one. I have a tray on top of it which is completed stuff waiting to be filed. I then have piles of stuff all over downstairs (top of the fridge etc) of stuff that is waiting to be dealt with / chucked. So am partly efficient and partly a total mess. Is that helpful?