apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Um, wow. I would go crazy if I were this disorganized.

I have a small filing cabinet right next to my desk. It has files for everything from pay stubs, bill statements, and previous years' tax documents to receipts & manuals. I go through every month and clear out things I no longer need. Works fine for me. The most important thing is to have plenty of files so you can easily find what you need and to keep the files in a convenient place.

I see nothing wrong with doing it once a year if that works for you.

As long as the bills are paid on time, and you can find a receipt if you need to. It does need to be stored outofsight, not piled on a desk or dining table. I use a large tin breadbox to stash all those receipts and notes that I'm not ready to let go of, and also don't want to create a file for. I go through it once a year, file the permanant stuff, shred the rest.

Except for taxis and rent, I pay for EVERYTHING via credit card - so no keeping receipts.

(and if you're single, rent, don't work for yourself and don't have kids - there's not much left to write off anyways)

The one product that changed my tax-paying life is the accordion-fold file. It's not even a fancy one - just a tiny cardboard version I bought at Staples for maybe $10. I keep it in my car and organize receipts by month. I don't even categorize other than that - just check the date and throw the receipt in the corresponding month section asap.

When tax time rolls around, I go through by month and pull out all the write-off worthy expenses. If I attempted to separate them up front, I'd end up with piles of ripped, faded receipts all over the place...

Initially, I tried to be super organized with a filing cabinet and color-coded folders and such. But I got so carried away with the art project aspect of creating the system that I ran out of steam before actually putting things away correctly! So I find that this short-cut version is more efficient for me.

Oh, and shred, baby, shred! It's much less daunting when there's no junkmail competing for your attention.

I've found that setting up a big binder with plastic sheet protectors for small items (receipts, pay stubs) in it works best for me. Keep a three hole punch handy and you can just pop in account statements, doctor's bills and test results, prescriptions, lease papers, xeroxes of your tax returns etc. It's simple, useful and very space efficient. I don't have space for a file cabinet, but I can always find space for my binder on my book shelf. Also makes archiving especially easy -- just write the date on the spine and start another one. Easy peasy.

My tax life is EZ, so I don't need to keep much for that purpose. I schedule payments of my bills onlilne within a day or two of when they arrive, then toss the bills into an "In/Out" tray. When that gets filled, I decide what to keep and what to trash. The keepers go into files in the trunk that serves as a window seat in the "library" where my desk is. Important papers (car title, mortgage papers, etc.) got into our fire-proof lock box. Everything else is filed, if it needs to be kept. Warranties and owner's manuals get a special container.

In many years of life, I have never once needed to go back to a utility bill or anything else except (maybe once or twice) a credit card bill. So those are the only bills I save.