filing system for the home - Help please - paper everywhere!!

[oldlady40]

Hello. How do people keep their filing organised at home. Used to have horrible filing cabinet in office/playroom and have now redesigned this room and have all gorgeous cupboards with small doors and open shelves. Do not want the filing cabinet in this beautiful room so have those concertina files and have few of them in a cupboard, but still have loads of paperwork - some which is needed occasionally- some need to keep but probably never look at again unless inland revenue need anything. any help, suggestions from filing queens! Also if you are a filing queen do you have it all indexed and labelled. don't really want to to spend sunny days doing this but have to adn have decided to devote next week to sorting out once and for all - suggestions welcome (sorry for long long thread but am drowning in bits of paper)

Hello, here are some ideas which might help you.

Firstly, I am really ruthless about what I truly need to keep and shred/recycle as much as I can. Think about what info you could easily store on your computer instead. For example if I get a letter with login details/phone numbers/other info that isn't contractual I put the details into their own word doc that I will recognise easily and get rid of the paper. I write passwords in full but put them in wxys I cxn recxxxise (iyswim!).

I have one lever arch file with dividers for all the household bills, gas, elec, phone, council tax, and keep all info for the current year in there which keeps it easily at hand. At the end of the year I archive it all into an archive box or (hopefully)dispose.

Then I have a couple of filing cases for more long term stuff - bank statements, tax info, family documents, insurance documents. Again it gets archived into the loft or disposed of about once a year.

Finally I have two stacked 'intrays' - bottom one is for stuff that needs filing, top one is for stuff I need to do something with which I go through about once every week or so.

HTH!

sorry, the above should of course have said I 'NEVER' write passwords in full!!!

hi oldlady40.
I've devoted my evenings this week to filing too.
Until now we've had the most important stuff in box files which were absolutely stuffed full. Then everything piled up in the kitchen waiting for me to do something with it. Then if MIL came to visit i'd throw it all in a plastic bag and hide it in the spare room.
Now that i can't get in the spare room I've bought a big ugly filing cabinet. Every evening this week i've sorted through a box or bag of stuff.
Actually most of it was rubbish and went straight in the recycling.
I have no suggestions really, i'm crap at this. just wanted to sympathise.

oh and i bought one of those dymo label printer things. very retro. sad i know, but that bit is fun.

Ikea office filing units masses a file for everything
tis easy....

Change all your bills to online billing.
Saves tons of space.