Best Paper Shredder for Financial Documents?

[uromac]

Hi -

We are trying to finally get organized in our house and really would like to safely shred a lot of the personal info papers we have stockpiling in our home.

Can anyone recommend a good, reliable paper schredder that will shred a lot of pages at a time! Thanks in advance!!

 

[wdwfan16]

We have one we got at Staples. It has a separate location for CCs and can shred about 10 pages at a time. Ours cuts them into small diamond shapes.

 

[clh2]

We got a great cross-cut shredder at Office-Max a couple of years ago on Black Friday. Got a great deal on it too!

The office max we shop at has a "sample bag" of shred for each shredder they sell. Go look at those - that really is the best way for you to be convinced on how easy it would be to put the pieces of shreds back-together again.

Shredders come in a variety of sheets at a time capacities. We find that in normal use, we are really only shredding a couple of things at a time, not a ton of things. So for us, anything over 10 pages at a time would be serious overkill.

We find that we use the credit card shredder and the cd shredder a fair amount, so we would not get a shredder without those.

 

[CowboyCO]

Call your local BBB and ask if they have a shredding event. I know our local one has an event every year to shred up personal documents and securely dispose of them.

 

[Best Aunt]

1) One of the local credit unions has been having shredding events, where you bring boxes of stuff to shred.

2) Staples seems to have shredders on sale in April, when people are doing their taxes.

3) If you go to the Staples website and go to the pages for this week's ad, there is a coupon you can print out to save 10% on one item if you purchase in the store (expires 10/31/09).

4) I have a 15-sheet cross-cut shredder which is several years old. I like it, but it is very heavy. If, for example, you will store it in a closet and move it out to use it, weight could be an issue.

 

[crisi]

...

The office max we shop at has a "sample bag" of shred for each shredder they sell. Go look at those - that really is the best way for you to be convinced on how easy it would be to put the pieces of shreds back-together again.
...

Also keep in mind that identity thieves are lazy. There are plenty of people who throw out trash without shredding it, plenty of mailboxes you can just drive through the suburbs on a weekday and take things out of. Why anyone would reconstruct even "easily reconstructed" shredded documents when there are easier pickings to be had......unless maybe you have Bill Gate's trash in your hand and are trying to break into his bank account, it just isn't worth the effort.

 

[clh2]

Also keep in mind that identity thieves are lazy. There are plenty of people who throw out trash without shredding it, plenty of mailboxes you can just drive through the suburbs on a weekday and take things out of. Why anyone would reconstruct even "easily reconstructed" shredded documents when there are easier pickings to be had......unless maybe you have Bill Gate's trash in your hand and are trying to break into his bank account, it just isn't worth the effort.

I agree to a point - but there are some shreds that I find to be unacceptable from a "piecing them back together again" perspective. If I am going through the effort of getting a shredder for the sole purpose of protecting our identities - you can bet it won't be a strip-shredder.