Bills. Statements. MOTs. Insurance. Receipts. Help! Can't see dining room anymore for sea of 'documents'

[JessaJam]

AND I can never find anything easily...always involves at least 3 hours of stressfully digging through the various piles and stacks in several locations throughout the house.
HOW do you manage/store your household paperwork?

I'm crap at paperwork, have a 3 drawer filing cabinet for old stuff and I desperately need to sort it out. Have recently started to deal with each piece of post on the day it arrives and am doing a bit of back clearing each week (kind of flylady style).

get yourself a metal box with some foolscap files and create a file for each bill type.

Then have ONE in-tray which you go through once or twice a week and then when actioned file straightaway in the box.

We've got one of those concertina type files. Godsend! Godsend!

oh tinshoes aren't you the organised one

Have you never heard of filing?

get some files
put them in
easy peasy

dh and i have 3 of those files. one for his stuff, one for mine and one for joint things. smiths do them with labels already on each file so you don't even have to do that bit. £4.99.

I think I need about 20 concertina files!!!

What do you do with the "archives"?! When the file gets full? Stuff that needs to be kept...

get a filing cabinet if you have that much 'old stuff' as it holds more.

But most stuff doesn't need to be kept!

Bank statements keep last 6 months
Bills just keep the last one
Ditto credit card statements
Everything else gets filed or shredded. If you get too much buy a new file!

Have a box file for instructions that I need to keep
DH, DD and I each have a hanging file for our personal stuff ie birth certs etc

I used to have a dining room like yours when I had a life.

Then in a moment of boredom I developed my three tier system.

1. Letter rack with two sections, one for "to do" stuff (bills to pay etc), one section for stuff to file away. This gets emptied every couple of weeks into my...

2. Concertina file with compartments for various bits (kept downstairs for ease of access)which in turn gets emptied every 2-3 months into my

3. Metal filing cabinet upstairs with hanging files which are divided up into houehold & personal stuff then bank statements, credit card statements, insurance, etc.

I clear this out every 2-3 years and get rid of any non-essential stuff.

The only reason I have three places is we were moving house & didn;t unpack some stuff for ages & it evolved.

It would work fine with the letter rack and filing cabinet without the concertina file inbetween.

• only thing older than one year i keep is things like birth certificates etc.
• I keep bills for 1 year,
• bank statements for 1 year,
• manuals in a seperate box in the garage,

I have box files, they're easier, you can just throw things in, one each of house (bills, mortgage), house info (instruction manuals etc), banks, other financial (pensions etc), personal (birth certificates etc), children (school info etc), cars - think that's it - god I'm organised

So...why do I keep stuff fo so long then? Am I worried in case British gas suddenly accuse us of failing to pay a bill in October 2003??

Have to keep some stuff for longer as DH is self-employed and they might be needed if he gets audited...

no idea maybe you are mad

Honestly my FIL still has his electricity bills etc from when they lived in Kuala Lumpur in the 1950s!!

get your bank statements and phone bill on line, no paper.

Dizzybint I did that but then when I remortgaged the bank wouldn't accept them as evidence, you had to have the originals not ones you had printed off.

So I reverted

maybe I am! ...

Will sort this out, promise!!

fair do countessdracula.

A filling cabinet is pretty essential I reckon. DH clears it out once a year and then old bills go into a bag in the loft until 3 or so years is up.

The top drawer has hanging files for medical, bills, travel, education, etc. and the bottom drawer has manuals. We have a suprising number for all the baby, gardening, Ikea furniture, etc. They are useful when selling items on ebay!

The top of the piano is where things sit though until they are paid, acted on, etc. then they go into the filing cabinet.