Do you have an admin system for your house which kicks butt ? I think my butt needs kicking.

[hub2dee]

OK. Have had enough of piles of paper and total admin disorganisation chez hub2dee. Need to get household paperwork under control.

We currently tend to pay bills on red reminders (great system), pay credit card a day late (crap system) - and then hassle them to remove late payment fees etc... am sure you get the picture.

Just wondered if any of you had 'systems' which worked... where / how do you file stuff ? When do you 'archive' the old crap ? Do you try and keep your filing close to the front door / living room / kitchen or hide it away in a study ? Where do you keep your folder of 'instruction leaflets for important appliances'... with the appliance, centralised, distributed in appliance-centric spaces (ie kitchen for kitchen white goods and living room for delicious hifi and AV bits etc. etc. ?

I routinely create piles of statements, piles of bills, old piles, new piles, tall piles, small piles, piles of piles etc. etc.

I am sick of it and want SLICK

(Erm... dw is sick of it too, poor woman, woops)...

Getting our car taxed involves tracking down insurance certificate, MOT, V5 reg doc etc. and inevitably takes days...

I was contemplating one file for:

BILLS, with dividers for Water / Gas / Elec / Rates / Mortgage etc.

one for:

STATEMENTS with dividers for Joint Account / Our Separate Accounts / Credit Cards etc.

(but this is where anarchy begins... aren't credit card statements actually bills IYSWIM ???)

So, what do you do, and does it work ?

Should I start a file for stuff relating to New Baby ? At the moment she has (thankfully) very little for us to organise (birth certificate, BUPA thingy, A Premium Bond certificate etc.) but I am under no illusion it won't grow...

Would be interested in how crap you (hopefully) all are, or IS IT JUST ME ? Does your system kick butt ?

Ooh. Top marks for the socks-in-basket thing.

We have to do that in our house because otherwise our senile cat walks round the house with them.

I have a filing system to put the long term stuff in - bills, birth certs that sort of thing.

I now also have a ring binder full of those plastic wallet things. It works like a fancy diary. Each pocket has a number (1 - 31) and there are two sets - so you can plan two months ahead. Everything that is coming up gets put into the right slot - eg, cc bill gets put in a few days ahead of the payment deadline, I have a box of birthday cards and I go through and sort who gets what for the next couple of months and put them in the slots a couple of days ahead.

And I love postit notes.

And I am very sad and have no life...

Pearls !!!!!!!!!!! Yikes. Scary.

Isn't it funny how people are so different. Me, big hulk of a smart man could never in a million years have two months of forward planning cc just-in-time payments, birthday cards picked out etc. etc....

I am good with iCal and Address Book though... electrons are my salvation.

Haven't read other replies but after years (no exaggeration) of filing stuff in piles, then crates, then attic (still have some very old archived crates to sort through) I bought a collection of different coloured box files for recent stuff and it's FANTASTIC! The ends are labelled eg "pay/tax", "credit cards/bank", "house bills" and as I work my way through piles things get filed or shredded or recycled and the feeling of a) achievement and b) comfort in knowing I can find things when I want them is immeasurable!

Also occasionally I come across something I've been desperate to find for weeks (eg DH's P60) and then I get to do a little song and dance

Can't cope unless it is organised in my house. Have to side with all those who have ordered you to get a filing system. I have a two drawer cabinet and I would be in serious trouble without it. I have a hanging file for every credit card, bank account, utility supplier, car, insurance, tax yr for last 7 yrs, in fact absoulutely everything. Then it is easy, as the paper comes through the letterbox it either goes in the bin or in the filing cabinet.
Get all your bills paid by direct debit. You often get a small discount & it saves time with tedious admin.
Get a noticeboard in the kitchen or some prominent place for all school/day to day stuff.
Get a family calendar so that you all know what you are doing when.
Get stacks of plastic storage boxes for kids toys.
Never leave a room emptyhanded!
I think I should start offering out my services as a household organiser. I am so sad, I get a kick out of it!!!!!

hate mess

hate filing cabinets, hate filing more

HATE piles of paper, especially the ones with SHRED scrawled accross them, for months now, and only two feet from the shredder

hate MN for keeping me from sorting it all out

hate the butterflies for flapping their goddam wings and getting the place into this state in the first place - but glad I finally have something to blame, thanks H2D

Hub - I am really really sad. All the bank accounts are on the computer. I have a computerised to do list.

And...

Saddest confession of all...

I have the layout of my local Tesco drawn out on a spreadsheet with all the products that I regularly buy in their rightful place and I print it off once a week and use it as my shopping list. I hate it when they move stuff around...

I'll get my coat.

Oh, and we have a Boots family organiser calendar - week to a page, 5 columns, and one of the columns has always been allocated to householdy things like insurance renewals. (You do have to look at it though.)

OOO nopearls do my locl tesco too - I'd love that...I have to settle for putting all the food in the bags with the stuff it is in the cupboard with(iyswim)

Am loving this thread.

Actually, supermarket map is a fairly good idea. Local stores should have 'rip sheet pad' things where shoppers can rip off a sheet and then mark up their shopping list on it, and on the back Tesco can seduce with 'two for one on family bags of flake' (mmm I love flake).

motherp - yes, and we all thought 'pretty, pretty'... lepidopterous villains.

pearls... could you please go over to motherp and help her put her hand on the 'shred' pile and insert it, piece by piece into the SHREDDING MACHINE ????

A filing cabinet is essential. Also working through the filing cabinet once a year and archiving information that you no longer need is a very good idea. I keep phone bills for six months, credit card bills for a year and bank statements for 3 years. I go though the instructions for appliances and thow out any we no longer need. Everything then fits easily in once drawer. I also buy birthday cards once a year for the whole family and send them out when my online calander reminder thing goes ping.

I have a spreadsheet with all my utility bills recorded in it so that I can compare year on year and feel smug about any savings. I have been known to do a graph

no advice really except OHIO for papers!
Only Handle It Once. We tend to tackle evrything the day it arrives, set aside 15-20 mins a day, more often than not ,much less. Recycle junk mail, envelopes straight into the recycling box, anything with address gets shredded straight away. bank statements get filed, bills are all paid by DD, credit card statements are kept for 1 month then shredded and the minimum amount is set up on dd so no nasty late payment charges, utilities bills are kept for 12 months then shredded. instruction booklets and the reciepts for the item are kept together in one file, car file for all things automotive, health file, one file for each of DD's and dh has one for work and tax etc. You have to be disciplined tho. We have a mammoth clear out about once a quarter, where unneccessary c**p is ditched. Dh has has a spreadsheet where all regular outgoings are recorded and then he will go thru reciepts and amend.
Was that any help?

oh and i buy cards once a year for everything plus a few spare in case i need them just like triceratops

Never sure how long to retain paper work though. I thought tax stuff (eg P60) was supposed to be 7 years. But what about other stuff?

mrspink: receipts with their appliance instructions is a winner. Thanks.

You lot are scarily organised... were you as organised before kids ?

We bought two filing cabinet units from IKEA. (lower half filing, upper half shelving). They make me puke. Not that they're nasty, they're kind of OK, just that their existence is in some way offensive to me. They reak of organised paperwork and drudgery.... hmmm... I think I have an attitude problem here, LOL...

Do all of you with filing cabinets keep them proudly on display (except for the one under the telly) ?

Anyway, I should be sorting paperwork, and instead I'm on here, in the attic room, with a box file marked 'Kitchen Appliances' next to me... We all know that should be downstairs somewhere....

I have bank statements going back for probably a decade. ....

... I'm well crap at this organisational game, LOL...

my dh who is in banking says that you only need to keep bank statements as long as you have completed your tax return and had it verified. You can always get copies if the worst cam to the worst although you might have to pay a small charge.

that should read "until you have done your tax return!"

hub2dee, you are looking at this the wrong way. Look at those lovely cabinets from IKEA as liberation. Freedom from chaos, red bills, piles of paper and time lost looking for things. Think about all the fun things you will be able to do, with the extra time you will have - once your system is in place.
Ah, the power of positive thought!!!!

These two units are not liberating. They are enslaving. They are highly non-digital. They suck big time.

just to add that it will feel like its getting much worse until you are sorted! but once you are sorted it will be cool!

Scan them all it and store digitally

I know, mrspink, it's just that they're so tidy IYSWIM.. they represent years of reciving statement, verifying it, filing it away, and then archiving. A perfect pile. An object of beauty....

.... so, I need to throw away all my Beautiful Things and embrace Ugly Filing units in faux wood ?

Ewww.... boo hoo.

Right, that's it! I have come in the study supposedly to file and instead gotten sidetracked on MN! This thread MUST be a flashing light (with sounds) to get the hell off her and do the filing!

You are resisting Hub2dee (needs to be said in camp German accent). You must accept the new world order in your household and embrace the efficient Swedish furniture!

Strangely I have been ripped of my ID to the tune of 1032 quid Hub2dee...at my old addy however so nothing to do with my neat window sill pile. I still think the easiest way to go is too piles...one big for paid(hidden in cupboard) and one small to be paid, visable for reminding yourself