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Living overseas

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moving with a hoarder.. I need to declutter! advice anyone?

5 replies

stuffitlllama · 18/05/2009 04:57

Dh is a shocking paperwork hoarder and we end up moving around ie shipping of boxes and boxes of stuff. Like five year old flight e-tickets, hotel bills, electricity statements from the place we lived before the place we lived before this one. Newspaper clippings. School letters. Email printouts. I just want to put a flamethrower to it. However I am sorting it while he's away on a trip so I would love a bit of advice.

What do I have to keep? Tax stuff and bank statements we have going back years.. back to when we lived in the UK, nearly ten years now, and that's all sacrosanct I know.

What else? We've got the last utility bills from the UK and the "paid off" bills from our store cards from that time.

Tell me -- can everything else go in the bin? What do you keep and what do you throw? It's maddening having to lug it all about. PLEASE tell me how you organise it because what with dh wanting to preserve every scrap and me wanting a bonfire I think I've lost the ability to think straight!

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stuffitlllama · 18/05/2009 05:00

oh and this is going to sound REALLY inept .. also I would LOVE to know what you do with school stuff.. that is, the books and drawings one might normally just sling in the attic, but which I am convinced is going to fill up half the container next time.

I know I should be brutal but it's so hard.

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ninedragons · 18/05/2009 05:32

Scan all the bills/clippings/statements etc, back them up on an external hard drive so you know that all the paperwork is in one place and then shred them.

I'd be a bit more lenient about the kids' stuff. I know a lot of former expat children who feel a bit disconnected when they're adults. Do you have understanding parents and ILs with large attics? You could ship a box or two each to them, so it's there when your kids eventually go "home".

stuffitlllama · 18/05/2009 05:36

Thanks nine dragon good idea about the scanning. I just can't work out what's expendable. Interesting about the children's stuff.. very interesting. This was my concern.

Also can I just say -- doing all this paperwork under heavy fans is a nightmare!

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ninedragons · 18/05/2009 10:04

Everything is expendable as long as you have the reference number - you're never going to have to produce the original of your London Electricity bill for 1997, but in the hugely unlikely event that you did have a problem with it, all anyone would need would be your account number.

Are your kids old enough to be involved in the sort-out?

I have done a few international moves myself and dealing with the accumulated paper is a fucking nightmare, I will certainly grant you that.

stuffitlllama · 18/05/2009 15:03

no I am keeping the children well away until the mountain of their stuff is reduced to half the size or nothing at all will go

i just don't know if dh can cope with a no paper situation, he will be checking the temperature of the hard disk every five minutes

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