What paperwork to shred?

[CaptainSinker]

I have some time at home alone tomorrow and am determined to do some decluttering.

I am a terrible paperwork hoarder so am keen to tackle this. But what should I keep? I have years of bank statements, insurance docs, legal stuff from selling property. My mum has my DGMs household budget books from the 1950s on so this is all new to me!

I have scanned everything I do not need physical copies of, keep hard copies of tax stuff and got rid of any financial stuff 5 plus years old.

Switch banking to online as well as utilities. We have one memory box each to fill with centre mental stuff that we go through periodically abd chuck out if we no longer want.

first, stop it coming in by switching everything to online.

if you do a tax return you need to keep docs related to it for 7 years (argh!). So get a cardboard wallet for each year, label, put all the paper in there. Put the wallets in a plastic box and the plastic box in the attic if you have one. Each year; one in, the oldest to the shredder.

otherwise; keep birth certificates, up to date eye prescriptions, marriage cert, copy of will, docs for pensions, statements for open accounts going back 2 years (reduce frequency to annual). There needs to be enough paper so that the account can be traced and managed, no more. Online banking is your friend but you do need a paper record of account numbers.

Keep current insurance info (not old), info for your car(s). For property that you no longer own, keep completion statement. There are no paper deeds any more.

create one file for 'centre mental' (phone'ism of the day).

shred the rest!