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 Money Eating Baggage Owner
Posts: 9586
   
Location: Phoenix | I'm about to lose my mind with all the bills and papers in the house. How do you guys organize all the papers that you need to keep around and all the irreplaceable ones like birth certificate, etc? I need a game plan before I die of anxiety. | |
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 Undercover Amish Mafia Member
Posts: 9992
Location: Kansas | I have my birth certification, kiddos BC, and social security cards, along with diploma locked away in a safe.
As far as bills go, I get a dividing organizer from walmart, label each individual tab with specific bills and arrange them by date.
Also, Pinterest has lots of great ideas for things like that. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 672
| hoofs_in_motion - 2016-01-19 11:03 AM
I have my birth certification, kiddos BC, and social security cards, along with diploma locked away in a safe.
As far as bills go, I get a dividing organizer from walmart, label each individual tab with specific bills and arrange them by date.
Also, Pinterest has lots of great ideas for things like that.
Same here! I also have a tin in my kitchen that I put all monthly bills, mail, whatever, in and go through it once a month and file it into the appropriate dividers. It's easier for me that way because 99% of the time when I get home I toss the mail and head outside! | |
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  Witty Enough
Posts: 2954
Location: CTX | I have a couple of those expanding file folders with 12 slots.
1 for the critters, 1 for this years bills, 1 for last years bills, 1 for vehicles and 1 for important papers (birth cert etc)
The one with last years bills will be emptied at the end of this year, and I have those slots per month, so all bills from Jan go in the 1st slot, Feb in the 2nd and so on.
And they all live in the safe.
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 Shelter Dog Lover
Posts: 10277
| hoofs_in_motion - 2016-01-19 11:03 AM I have my birth certification, kiddos BC, and social security cards, along with diploma locked away in a safe. As far as bills go, I get a dividing organizer from walmart, label each individual tab with specific bills and arrange them by date. Also, Pinterest has lots of great ideas for things like that.
Ditto | |
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 Midget Lover
Location: Kentucky | hoofs_in_motion - 2016-01-19 12:03 PM I have my birth certification, kiddos BC, and social security cards, along with diploma locked away in a safe. As far as bills go, I get a dividing organizer from walmart, label each individual tab with specific bills and arrange them by date. Also, Pinterest has lots of great ideas for things like that.
I do the same thing. I recently bought a file safe from Lowe's and have all my "important" stuff in there. It's divided into tabs. SO HELPFUL! I also have a file system on my counter right when I walk in. I put bills that need to be paid, and anything else important that I'm waiting on in there. | |
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 Coyote Country Queen
Posts: 5666
| We also keep our important documents in a safe. I have a wall-mounted envelope holder thing hanging right inside the door. I put all bills and stuff that needs dealt with in there, immediately toss the junk, but the magazines seem to get tossed in a pile that turns into a stack! I like the hanging thing for bills because I can go through them weekly and I see it as I'm walking out the door and it reminds me to grab the mail when I head to town. We have a filing cabinet that I put bills and receipts into after they've been paid. | |
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 I Chore in Chucks
Posts: 2882
Location: MD | Super important documents, BC, SSC's Passport etc is in a "secret" place that in the event of a fire or whatever it's quick and easy to grab and go. It's in an easy expanding file folder and I love it, I know where all super important items are. Aside from SO's kids and my dog wouldn't really need to grab anything else!
Everything else like statements of due bills/paid bills/statements etc. are all in a shoe box labeled by the year. IE things you should probably keep but most likely will never need. It's great when it's tax time because everything including receipts are in there. All's we need is a weekend and a few bottles of wine to chip through it :) | |
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 Expert
Posts: 1304
| I go to Dollar Tree (especially right now) when they have all of their organization bins, containers, etc that are all different colors and designate medicines, hair stuff, receipts, important papers, toiletries, "junk", electronics, etc to different trays or bins so that they all have a place and it makes me feel so much better. And everything's only a dollar  | |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| Why are you keeping your bills? Unless they are deductible at the end of the year I don't see the point of keeping all the excess paper. Important documents should be locked away in a fire proof container, SS cards, Birth Certificates, Passports, Car titles, Taxes, horse papers, etc. Living in OK right now, we keep ours in a safe in the cellar. | |
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 The One
Posts: 7998
Location: South Georgia | Filing cabinet for storage.
I open bills as they come and write their due dates down before I file away the bills in the cabinet.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 612
| The organization systems sound great, but how do you keep things from piling on the corner of the table on a day to day basis? Also, what do you do with your kid's papers that come home in their backpack? How do you decide what to keep and what to throw away? | |
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 John Deere Green
Posts: 12272
Location: ~Kansas~ | We have 2 safes for important documents and we use a file cab for bills.. taxes... etc...
I make folders for each month and file away
I also have a receipt book for my side biz documents for tax purposes
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 Toastest with the Mostest
Posts: 5712
Location: That part of Texas | FlyingJT - 2016-01-19 12:18 PM Why are you keeping your bills? Unless they are deductible at the end of the year I don't see the point of keeping all the excess paper. Important documents should be locked away in a fire proof container, SS cards, Birth Certificates, Passports, Car titles, Taxes, horse papers, etc. Living in OK right now, we keep ours in a safe in the cellar.
I agree on the bills and saving them. If you cannot break from the habit and don't want to scan them (yeah, that's a pain in itself), go to Wal-Mart and get you a cheaper $30 camera that takes good black/white photos. Instead of scanning, just take a picture of the bill that's readable. If you need it, you'll have it. If not, you can just erase the pics off the disc later on. It's so much easier than scanning, filing each document away on your computer and taking up computer memory.
When I'm out and shopping around, I use the camera on my phone to take pictures of receipts I'm afraid of losing or such that I think I need to keep. Most receipts are printed on paper that fades easily and this has come in handy when I've needed to return something under warranty (those store bought ones) and didn't want to hunt for the missing receipt.
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 312
Location: KS | We farm/ranch so almost everything is a deductible besides our personal purchases. So all receipts, bills, etc. are saved, personal or not, take into account groceries, utilities, almost everything can be wrote off in our house.
I have a nice built in office now (our house burnt down almost 2 year ago), but I have two horizontal filing drawers in my desk, before I always used a stand alone filing cabinet. I have 2 sets of folders A-Z, all bills are filed at the end of month or whenever I get to it alphabetically. At the end of the year these bills are taken out and filed in a cardboard file box for the next 5-7 years (I think that's how long you have to keep stuff now). Every transaction that is done is entered into a Quicken program on the computer, I have 5 accounts set up because my husband and I keep separate checking accounts, and then I have our savings listed separate, and then I keep a cash account for the sole purpose of keeping track of any loss that may occur, such as a calf, cow, etc. This is done so I can easily print off a report for our accountant at the end of year for tax purposes.
The other A-Z files I use to keep track of manuals for everything, anything from tools, farm equipment, to appliances in the house, but very easy to find when you need one because they're alphabetized.
All important documents such as birth certificates, marriage license, titles to pickups, trailers, semis, etc. are filed in a $50.00 Walmart Sentury fire proof file box. I have 2 of these now, the others I keep extra checks, pictures, and a few other things in. Everyone should have at least one of these for important documents. Talking from someone who has lost everything, in my old house I had one of these and kept everything I listed above in it, its the only things that made it through the fire. It saved me a lot of time a headache to not have to think of and replace all the titles, are ss cards were also in there ( I know some keep them in a safety deposit box, but I like everything with me). We also had a Liberty gun safe in the house, nothing was salvaged from it but another little sentury firebox that we kept a little cash inside was saved.
I would say keep your important documents in a fire proof safe, someone mentioned above about having them in an easy to grab place, but I was at work when we had our fire, and the house was gone by the time I drove the 10 miles there, so get you a nice little fire proof box for them. I would have never guessed wed loose everything in a fire, but I was somewhat prepared by having a few things in a safe place.
Good Luck with your organization! | |
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Witty Enough
Posts: 2954
Location: CTX | Red Raider - 2016-01-20 10:18 AM FlyingJT - 2016-01-19 12:18 PM Why are you keeping your bills? Unless they are deductible at the end of the year I don't see the point of keeping all the excess paper. Important documents should be locked away in a fire proof container, SS cards, Birth Certificates, Passports, Car titles, Taxes, horse papers, etc. Living in OK right now, we keep ours in a safe in the cellar. I agree on the bills and saving them. If you cannot break from the habit and don't want to scan them (yeah, that's a pain in itself), go to Wal-Mart and get you a cheaper $30 camera that takes good black/white photos. Instead of scanning, just take a picture of the bill that's readable. If you need it, you'll have it. If not, you can just erase the pics off the disc later on. It's so much easier than scanning, filing each document away on your computer and taking up computer memory.
When I'm out and shopping around, I use the camera on my phone to take pictures of receipts I'm afraid of losing or such that I think I need to keep. Most receipts are printed on paper that fades easily and this has come in handy when I've needed to return something under warranty (those store bought ones) and didn't want to hunt for the missing receipt.
Now that is an excellent idea!! I never thought of that, and come to think of it, I have 2 older digital camera's that will do just fine for this which I was going to donate. So guess I'll be only donating 1 of them.... Thanks! | |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 312
Location: KS | JAG18 - 2016-01-19 12:28 PM
The organization systems sound great, but how do you keep things from piling on the corner of the table on a day to day basis? Also, what do you do with your kid's papers that come home in their backpack? How do you decide what to keep and what to throw away?
My Aunt kept a folder in a filing cabinet for each year in school for her kids, everything got filed by grade, she then went back and scrapbooked some, and I suppose threw away some also. Think ill do this someday. | |
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 I Prefer to Live in Fantasy Land
Posts: 64864
Location: In the Hills of Texas | I'm very unorganized but I do have a file cabinet. Wish I would use it. LOL
I need to find someone to come and get me organized but then I wouldn't be able to find anything.
Edited by Nevertooold 2016-01-20 4:42 PM
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 Three in a Bikini
Posts: 2035
| I bought a 2 drawer file cabinet from Target and it was the best plan I have had since getting married.
1 box for me. 1 box for husband.
I have folders for each individual bill and then combine those folders into 1 when the year is up. | |
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 Born not Made
Posts: 2937
Location: North Dakota | I pay bills as they come in, so I usually only have a few laying on my desk at a time. Once it's paid, I write the date I paid it (and amount) and the bill then file it. I have a small filing cabinet with hanging folders for different categories. I keep all the bills for a year. I keep the ones I need for taxes when tax season rolls around and then I shred the rest and start over the for the new year.
Important documents (horse's reg papers, birth certificates, vehicle titles, copy of our wedding DVD, etc) are stored in a fire-proof water-proof safe.
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