I love paper. Notebooks, scratch pads, bank statements. I never opt to “go paperless” because a physical bill in the mailbox is less likely than an email to be ignored. But lately, paper is turning on me, and I need to do something.
My downfall appears to be the result of my consistent (some would say anal) approach to retaining “important” paperwork. I keep every statement for bank accounts, loans, utility bills, pay stubs, donations, prescriptions, car emission inspections, and magazine subscriptions. After a year I gather it all up to do taxes, then store in manila envelopes. While it’s important to keep seven years of records in the event of an IRS audit, I never really cull the collection unless forced. Moving makes you face things you need to discard rather than pay to move, but failing that, I would just keep stuffing things into the closet.
Gone are the halcyon days when we had a giant attic in which to retain everything. Now with limited space, the reckoning comes sooner than you’d expect. The closet where I put tax papers was full. I suspected there were some old papers up there and we realized we’d have to start the painful task of emptying the high shelf to see what could come out.
And bingo, I found five years of envelopes old enough to be shredded. Good news! I could clear a bunch out and make room for the 2023 stack. Going through the envelopes to shred, I saw how much of it would be worthless to the IRS (and honestly to me). These same worthless things were still in the envelopes of the years of papers I was going to retain. Then it finally hit me. Why am I keeping these things?!
So I did what would have, up to now, been unthinkable: I pulled out the bank statements, phone bills, and other ephemera. For each of the seven years I would retain, I only kept the really important stuff. Now seven years of tax papers fits in a single box.
Can I sustain this discipline? Not sure. Am I ready to change my settings to “paperless”? Not yet. But I think I will need to invest in a commercial grade shredder.