Decluttering Paperwork – What to Keep and What to Toss

What Papers Should I Hold and Toss?

Decluttering Paperwork – What to Keep and What to Toss. I could easily go into a long diatribe about paperwork clutter as I currently have this going on in my home as well. Papers everywhere – in my office, on my desk, file cabinets, kitchen counters, and 2 dedicated junk drawers. And the reason there’s so much is because I had no idea what I should keep or what I could toss.

But not any more. I started doing a “paperwork purge” and man does this feel good – everything I’ve gotten rid of with personal information has been burned and miscellaneous paperwork has been tossed in the dumpster.

File cabinets / done
Desk top / done
Kitchen counter / done
Dining room table / done
Junk drawers / still working on those

BOOM !!

4 GUIDELINES TO DECLUTTERING PAPERWORK

How did I accomplish this? I followed these 4 guidelines – what to keep for a month, one year, seven years and forever. Everything else – GONE !! Who’d of thought it would be this simple.

And like I mentioned above – I could easily go into a long diatribe … but I won’t. I’ll get straight to the point. Here are the 4 guidelines to follow on which papers you should keep and for how long, and what you can just toss. Good luck and happy purging.

PAPERWORK – WHAT TO KEEP AND WHAT TO TOSS

KEEP FOR ONE MONTH – toss grocery store receipts and ATM receipts once you’ve checked then against your bank and credit card statement. Those little papers add up so just go ahead and chuck them

KEEP FOR ONE YEAR – once you get your year end bank, mortgage or credit card statement, and everything matches up – go ahead and toss those monthly statements. There’s no reason to keep them when the same information is in your yearly

KEEP FOR SEVEN YEARS – unless it’s a “feel good personal decision” to hang on to ALL of your tax returns from over the years, you can safely get rid of any papers that support your tax returns as the IRS can no longer contact you for an audit after that amount of time.

KEEP FOREVER – you’ll want to hold on to anything related to the sale or purchase of a home, stock transactions, life insurance policies, social security and Medicare/Medicaid information, Physicians information, marriage license, passports, and birth certificates. These can be stored safely in your home in a “bug out” accordion file folder (one that you can grab in a moments notice) or in a safe deposit box for easy access.

And there you have it – now you know what papers you can keep and what you can toss. Best wishes on your purging endeavor. Next up for me – MAGAZINES. Oh lawdy, why I keep all the magazines from over the years I’ll never know. Oh wait, yes I do – I just might want to make that ONE recipe that caught my eye or read about …. 🙂