Really boring question but am sinking under pile of bills and statements

[PeachesMcLean]

I'm spending this afternoon going through The Box of Doom.

I organise all the households bills and paperwork. Everything from the mortgage and utilities, to paying for holidays. I'm sinking under the mountain of Stuff. In The Box, I keep all the paperwork - my old bank statements, payslips, credit card stuff, tax credit stuff, utilities bills, the lot.

I think I need advice. How do you organise this stuff? Do you have a filing system? How much do you put straight in the bin? How long should I keep bank statements for? Credit card bills? Phone bills? We're about to put the houes on the market so I have some notion that I need old bank statements and pay slips for mortgage stuff but don't really know. And I fear moving house is going to require a second Box of Doom if I don't sort out this one.

I need a system and some tips please.

Thanks all.

We have 2 metal filing boxes from Argos with slings in. I file alphabetically by name of the company, in date order - newest date at the front. We keep paperwork for 2 years.

We have our own Box of Doom on a shelf in the bedroom. Every piece of 'keepable' paperwork gets put at the front and every few months (should be every month really) I go to the back and throw out everything over a year old (with the exception of payslips which I think you have to keep for 24 months after the end of the tax year they were issued in)

Any more organised system has failed miserably for us - moving things from the kitchen where we open it, to the box is about as good as I get!

I file every month-ish, we have a paperwork pile we add to until I get the urge to file.

filing box

I was once told that anything to do with money eg bank statements should be kept for 7 years.

I keep household bills for about 2 years, only so I can compare prices, or work out budgets from time to time.

Anything to do with the mortgage, I keep until we get a new one (eg when we move house which we have done quite frequently.)

I keep them all in files or boxes.

I think that anything related to tax matters needs keeping for 7 years, this is how long any investigation could go back. There was a thread about it not so long ago, which you might be able to find.

Apart from that, we have a bookcase with a file for each subjest - statements, mortgage, payslips, utilities etc. I've recently started to file as I finish with something and, obvious though it sounds, it's made a big difference.

However I have a Drawer of Doom for all my personal stuff - Boden statements, hospital letters, can't even think what - if it doesn't fit in anywhere else and has nothing to do with DH, in it gets bunged and forgotten about til it all starts falling down the back of the drawer and I have to have a sort out.

Nobody's perfect

We have a blue metal filing box with sections for bank statements/utility bills/payslips/credit card bills/etc etc

ALL bills are paid by direct debit so the paper bits are jut for information. I have just instructed our bank not to send any more paper statements and I think lots of the utility companies will do this too if you ask.

About 2 years ago I got to a state where I had months and months worth of unopened brown envelopes (all paid by dd) and it took most of a day to sort it out so now we've got this box I open it and file it same day usually so we don't have piles of paper sitting around the house. I do worry tnough that if we were broken into that box would be enough to pose as us, it's a lot of information. But I'm not sure how much of a threat that is really. I started a thread, I'll see if I can find it.

I don't know why but I thought you were supposed to keep everything for 7 years

Anything to do with mortgage/loan payments I'd probably keep forever

here another thread

So I'm supposed to keep bank statements for 7 years???!!!

I know at work we're supposed to keep all financial records for 7 years but that's at home too?

Do you also keep cheque books for 7 years therefore?

Thanks WWW, I'll read that one in detail as well. Far better thread title there I have to admit...