How do you stop paperwork building up?

[HearTheThunderRoar]

DD and I have just shredded (by hand!) about 5 boxes of paper work, mainly bills, old insurance policies, tax returns, parking fines all dating back to the late 1990s, many tax returns (one from 1992!). Worst was the bank statements though, I swear I've kept Every Single Bank Statement from '95 to 2011, there were hundreds of them.

So how long do you store bills, financial documents, letters etc? Because I don't want them to accumulate like that ever again.

7 years. Every time a new one goes into the folder a 7 year old one goes to the fire lighting basket. Receipts and instructions are a whole other battle though. The simple answer is to buy less stuff!

Online!
We have paperless bank statements, online utilities (we are with Ovo who don't even offer paper bills), council tax is paperless, even the car insurance does an online portal with all our docs so we can do our parking permit online but they also send a paper copy which we keep

We have a small filing cabinet with sections for the car (v5, insurance doc, service book and paperwork from when we bought it), the dog (passport, vaccination certificate, insurance certificate), pensions (policy numbers), house (insurance, warranties and manuals) and personal docs (birth certificates, passports, payslips, p60s)

If it isn't likely to be needed by someone (tax return, mortgage application etc), it goes in the bin once it's been dealt with.
No one is going to get sentimental over old parking tickets!

I open letters by an open fire, open, look, chuck in.

I have honestly never once needed an old bill or bank statement.

Even when self-employed.

Thanks for the tips guys, god knows why I've kept all this shit so long, esp as we've moved house (including a 200 miles shift) about 6 times in the last 20 years. Maybe it's because I am an accountant am paranoid about not having the correct financial documents, I just find it so hard to chuck stuff immediately and then I never get round to chucking.

Sparechange, it was horrendous, I found the original mortgage application and copies from a house we sold over a decade ago. DD did have a good laugh at all the parking tickets I use to accrue

We've just started scanning ours to Dropbox.

DH has organised it so that it is all in a crypto fangled security stylee.....

Sorry I don't know how to do a link but if you google how long to keep paper work there was a good article by money supermarket

All my bank statements are now online. I never check them. Do we still need to keep old paper copies? I was always told to keep 6 years worth but never knew why.

What about letters that confirm a debt has been paid off?

I have a big folder with everything in, every time I put a new document in I throw away any of that document that are over a year old.

Only exception is p60s ive got quite a few of those, I don't know how long you should keep them so ive been cautious

I file mine in my log burner lol

Switch every utility and bank statements to paperless, online settings. There is no reason on earth to keep a bill any longer than once it's paid.