I'm about to embark on a MASSIVE paperwork sort-out, and don't know where to start. Please come and offer advice and encouragement

[SoonToBeOrganisedMum]

Right, I've name-changed for this because I'm so bloody ashamed of the state of my paperwork piling filing system. I could locate my passport in an instant (I think ...), but most other stuff - utility statements, bank statements, receipts, tax stuff - no way. I even have boxes of paperwork labelled "to sort" from when I moved house four years ago. And a couple of hundred dollars left over from a holiday two years ago, but I have no idea where.

Because I have never cracked setting up an easy-to-use filing system, and routine and structure and being organised and orderly don't come naturally to me, the piles just mount and mount, and every year when it's tax return time, locating the necessary paperwork is an ordeal.

I feel crap about this, and enough's enough. I have set aside the next three days, on and off, to get my various piles of paperwork sorted into an orderly filing system, with the ultimate aim being that I'll be able to lay my hands on any piece of paper I need to, straight away.

I have a filing cabinet, suspension files, ring binders, the odd box file, shredder, etc. Where do I start? Lump everything in the filing cabinet? Or are some things (bills, bank stuff, receipts) better filed in their own ring binders? I think I have one of those concertina files too.

I'm dreading this, but it has to be done, and the sooner the better. Please give me all your best tips on organising household paperwork, on what must stay and what can go, on how to stay organised, and words of encouragement to get this (daunting) mission accomplished by close of play Thursday.

Thank you!

Anyone?

I need to do this too. I have several of those huge blue ikea bags full of paperwork that I need to sort out.

I'm not the person to advise about how to do it, but just thought I'd give you a bit of encouragement!!!

Hello, I sympathise with this situation. I had a major overhaul of mine about 6 months ago. I had been filing EVERYTHING in concertina files for about 20 years, every time a file was full it went in the loft. I kid you not, I had every payslip, letter, bank statement that I had ever received. I could find things if I needed to, but it was taking up so much space and was so inefficient I had to do something.

I went through the whole lot, it was a fascinating trip down memory lane! I set three big boxes around an arm chair, and sorted everything into SHRED, RECYCLE or KEEP as a first step. KEEP included sentimental stuff, longterm stuff like pension documents, bank statements and anything to do with tax for the last 5 (or 7, not sure now) years, and all my utility bills for the last two years.

My new filing system is mostly box files, as follows. Car, House (insurance etc), House (receipts for improvements, warranties for windows etc), Pensions, Health, Memberships etc, one each for the DCs stuff, Receipts, miscellaneous financial (old P60s and random stuff), Personal (wedding invitations etc).

I stashed away all the older bank statements back in one of the concertina files as you have to keep them but are unlikely to be used.

Then started two lever arch files, both starting at the start of the tax year, one for anything to do with tax (bank statements, child tax credit stuff, dividend vouchers etc) and one for credit card bills, utility bills etc. The idea being that I will keep the tax related files for 5 or 7 years, and the credit, utility one for 2 years.

Then I shredded and shredded and shredded.

This took about a month doing maybe half an hour a day (the shredding alone took hours, I just sat in front of the telly with subtitles on and shredded for half an hour every night).

Well worth it though, the new system is lovely! good luck with yours!

do you really need to keep so much? i bin most paperwork straight away. just keep stuff relating to car / home insurance policies. don't keep any utility bills, bank statements, credit card statement.

all my stuff just goes in a concertina file. if i was you i would start by chucking stuff out rather than filing it all away

do you really need to keep so much? i bin most paperwork straight away. just keep stuff relating to car / home insurance policies. don't keep any utility bills, bank statements, credit card statement.

all my stuff just goes in a concertina file. if i was you i would start by chucking stuff out rather than filing it all away

I'm doing paperwork sort now. Will report back. My paperwork is shambles.
Birth certs, passports, driving licence in one special place, and then the rest...? well I haven't yet worked it out.

I think someone on here said it's better to have current file for 2010 or tax/school year (whatever you prefer), and then at end of year put things into dedicated folders, ie: bank statements,, tax stuff, old invoices etc and put them somewhere less accessible but so that you can still find them if necessary.

I do keep invoices for household stuff ie: piano, furniture for insurance purposes, although don't know it will ever be needed.
Warranties in separate file with instruction manuals.
Samples for wallpaper and material that I've already used and might need to match.
Memorabilia file for letters and postcards if you like that sort of thing
Children's artwork - a small selection in big plastic folders one for each child.
throw most of cookery clippings and "ideas" if you haven't already done anything with them, you will never get round to using.

The one or two concertina files for NOW means current stuff is at hand, can be very quickly filed and that you keep on top of things from now on.

Oh MrsDinky that sounds v encouraging, might follow your plan.

Back to my paperwork NOW!

I'm a bit baffled by this problem

How about this?

1. Sort yourself out around 20 nice shiney ringbinder files (DO NOT STOP AT THIS POINT - THIS IS WHERE YOU HAVE BEEN GOING WRONG)

1. Put the children and the husband to bed. Go into the study and make a solemn vow NOT TO LEAVE THE STUDY UNTIL EVERYTHING IS FILED AND ORGANISED.

1. Sort the paperwork into piles. Gas bills in one pile. Tax return stuff in another pile. Electricity bills in another. Car stuff in another. Insurance stuff in another. Pensions ditto. Investments ditto. Do not stop until everything is in a pile. Throw away useless bits of paper that are promoting new products.

1. Work through each pile methodically filing it in one of your new shiney ringbinder files. With tax stuff, I like to have file dividers dividing it into tax years so that I don't get confused. Make a list of things to do which occur to you on reading all the information you've been ignoring for years.

1. At the end of your ordeal, reward yourself with a glass of wine. 4am in the morning is not the best time for solo drinking but still, you have deserved it. Work through the todo list tomorrow.

Tada

Argh paperwork!!!!

I have so much of it everywhere, hate it and never seem to get round to sorting it. I also have stuff from years ago when I moved house.

If you don't have shredder how do i get rid of old bank statements?

Burn them?

Well you could rip them into tiny pieces or burn them. I do ripping into small pieces. Isn't your bank giving you a paperless option?

If you have a filing cabinet with hanging files you don't need ring binders. I find it much quicker to file straight into the hanging files.

Take it easy - you can do an hour at a time, in the evening when you;re feeling up to it. Make sure you have the recycling bin, a wastepaper basket and a shredder to hand. And a notebook and a pencil for writing a to-do list as you come across stuff that needs actioned.

Decide what you're going to keep, and only file the important stuff, and the last year's statements. Both self and DH are self employed so we keep 7 years worth of stuff, but that doesn't go in the "active" hanging files, but in foolscap paper folders marked with the year.

Shred/chuck as much as you can. File the rest. Have wine, too.

Once you've chucked and filed everything you need to plan how you deal with paperwork that comes into the house. Remove yourself from as many catalogues and mailing lists as you can - register with the MPS (mailing preference service). Decide on a day for paperwork/filing. If you're not brilliantly tidy and can do it every day then aim for once a week. Empty your kitchen table inbox at least weekly - chucking/actioning/filing.

Every year you need to sort out the filing cabinet - removing all of last year's paperwork and moving it into the folder marked 2009 (or whatever). Then chuck the oldest archived stuff. ie a couple of weeks ago I took out all of the 2009 paperwork, and chucked the 2002 folder (so I've kept 2003-2009 folders and all the active stuff in the main filing cabinet).

We are a busy house (aren't we all) with two self employed people and two soon to be three children, and I manage with one 2 drawer filing cabinet and one crate with the 7 years archive in it. I keep it all in ONE place - there's no paperwork anywhere else in the house so I know it must be there when I'm looking for something.

HTH

Only problem with paperless is that if you change bank you lose access to all your records, unless you save them onto your own computer.

Shredders are quite cheap I think.

It's worth buying a decent shredder tbh. Rymans have decent cross cut shredders for about £30-40 but you can get them cheaper. We put ours on the compost heap as "brown waste".

You all need German DHs.

We have files for

Bank - separate files for statements and for paperwork
Insurance - sub files for home/car/health/life insurance
House - split into contracts/receipts/utilities/phone
Pay slips

and many more.

Get into the habit of filing things as they come in so you don't get a build up. And get an "inbox" - I have one of these files that I put anything in that has to be done. Labelled:

• Bills to be paid
• To do
• Info (for school etc that I might have to look up times)

I sort mine out every few months, and that is enough of a ballache. DH on the other hand is awful - he has bags full of bank/credit card statements, pension stuff, junk mail - much unopened that could just be shredded if he took the time to do something with it. Drives me up the blumming wall!

I found it all too much to do proper sorting at once so I did it in stages that made me feel really good about having achieved something and reassured that the next step was manageable. I'm not finished getting organised, but I have reduced the mountains to about 20% of their former glory and everything is grouped properly at least. Mind you, we are talking as bad as unopened bank statements (since online banking started) and "to sort" boxes from 5 years ago...

This is what I did:
First stage - I got a load of cardboard boxes and sorted ALL the paperwork into "financial", "house" and "personal" (and "recycle"), keeping essentials like passport etc in a separate box file. It feels so good just chucking bits of paper in boxes.

Second stage - I went through a box, opened any unopened letters, chucked what I knew I could chuck and then wrote a list of what I thought the main subdivisions would be.

Third stage - I sorted that box into its subdivisions (joint account, my account, dh's account, savings, pension, wage slips etc) .

Fourth stage - Everything in a subdivision got put in date order and paperclipped or elastic banded together. I don't need to rush into deciding how far back to keeps things if I'm not sure.

Bear in mind there was sometimes a good couple of months between those stages and sometimes a couple of days. I just got a headache trying to do it all at once and my brain stopped wanting to make decision which meant I kept stuff I could have chucked.

I've still got to go through the 3rd and 4th stages for 2 small boxes, and still have to find a way to properly organise the archives and incoming mail, but it feels like the chaos has been marshalled into order. I feel in control. Ah - never thought I would say that about my paperwork!

If you're a bit anal like me, you may also get some pleasure from labelling the hanging files (organised as per Mme Lindt!), with a labelling machine.

Yeah I have paperless option now but still about four years worth of old ones.

Must by shredder I think!

I am on holiday for the next week I am going to get ALL my paperwork sorted by then. And by a cork board I think for current/in use bills/statements as things tend to get stuffed in drawers and not found till to late.

I WILL BE ORGANISED.
I WILL BE ORGANISED.

Thanks

PS - didn't add encouragement, but hopefully you have read something amongst all this fab advice that fits you! I'm cheering you on (and bookmarking this for more great advice on my search for an organised life...)

Thanks so much! That's brilliant. I feel armed with some options for approaching this now. And I'm so relieved it's not just me who's awful at this sort of thing. I don't know if it makes any sense, but my brain just doesn't seem to work this way - the organised paperwork way. Still, it's going to have to!

I feel ready to get stuck in - well, to at least make a really good start. I want it done by the time DS breaks up from school, really, because I won't get a chance during the holidays.

Thank you all again. Fellow sorters, please report back on your progress - and good luck!

im going to hide this thread so i can forget about the boxes and boxes of paperwork past and present under my bed....the pile in front of me right now on the table...the drawers stuffed to bursting so i cant actually use them for anything meaninful...

i am of your paperwork sort out!

Oh Vicar, can't you do one to? Or at least make a start? One pile tomorrow? I will if you will.

"... do one too?" even.

Ok lets get started.

Clear dining table of papers/bills and pile next to kettle. Will be in my way when i return from school run