The dreaded paperwork dilema, what to keep what to shred?

[Linnet]

I have been trying to work my way through the piles and piles of paperwork in my house. I have decided to shred the millions of bank statements & credit card bills as I can get them all online. Also the gas and electric bills which go as far back as our last house 16 years ago! Again I can access them online so I don't need to keep them.

But I'm not sure about a few things. I have payslips going back over 20 years, for jobs dh and I haven't worked in for years. Can I shred those? I can't see any reason to keep them but I'm afraid to shred them incase I suddenly need them.

Also mortgage info. When we bought our house we took out our mortgage with Bank A. Last year we remortgaged to Bank B. Do I need to keep anything paperwork wise from bank A about our mortgage? I'm thinking no as Bank B paid off that mortgage So I'm thinking I could shred anything from Bank A to do with the Mortgage as that is all over and done with? Would this be correct? Again I don't want to shred something and then find I need it.

Advice welcome, thanks

Shred everything! Nothing you have mentioned needs keeping! Also are you my MIL?

I feel your pain. I'm quite organised but not when it comes to filing paper.

I'm not sure about payslips going back that far but I'd keep the last 10 years P60s rather than the payslips themselves. I think it might be 7 years for tax purposes? Not sure and DH is asleep so can't ask him.

I'd be inclined to keep some of the paperwork from Bank A especially Ts and Cs, last statement. In the late 90s I received compensation for endowment mis-selling when I could produce the original documents even though I'd quit the endowment plan.

Just my thoughts.

I shred everything older than 6 years.

The other thing I do is archive papers that have to be kept in the loft. They go into brown archive bags and then into an archive storage box. I try to only store the bare minimum of active papers in the house.

I label the boxes and bags along the lines of "Keep until 2017", that kind of thing.

I'm about to start this, to! Keep all P60s, and mortgage agreement and last settlement letter from them.
Wish me luck, I'm going in, too!

Thanks for the replies. I was planning to keep all the P60's I can find. I have a feeling though that I don't have the p60's from our jobs 20 years ago, not sure why not as I've kept all the payslips and I'm obviously the type of person who hangs on to stuff! I think if I don't have the P60's I'll keep the last payslip of that year as that always equates to the same as the P60, showing how much you earned.

For the mortgage stuff I'll look through it and see what there is. I'l maybe keep all the mortgage statements and see what else there is. This is the first house we've bought so I'm not sure what I need to keep, don't want to throw out the wrong thing.