Help with cleaning up my paperwork...

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I have tax returns from before I married my husband, so at least 15 years of returns. That's probably excessive but they don't take up much room so I keep adding to the pile.

I keep a year's worth of utility bills, medical bills, mortgage bills, and credit card/bank statements in the file cabinet, and then try to clean them out at tax time or spring cleaning, I don't have an exact date or anything. Any bill that hasn't been fully paid stays in the cabinet of course, regardless of how old it is.

I hold onto receipts for large appliance purchases, hefty service bills, home improvement purchases, auto parts until the end of the warranty period, I probably sort through those every couple years.

I keep warranty and manuals up to date, I store my greeting cards in the file cabinet, and i keep one file folder of school work, art work, etc for each kid every year.
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My husband and I each have a file folder where I put our miscellaneous important papers like our diplomas, my child clearances, and our memorabilia.

and I have an emergency folder that I keep in the front of the file cabinet so i can grab it and go in an emergency, it has our social security cards, birth certificates, marriage license, copies of our drivers licenses, and the kids' fingerprint papers.

We have a small house and I only have a 2-drawer file cabinet, so I have to be proactive about keeping it cleaned out or I end up buried by a mountain of papers. I have a couple of file boxes that I keep in our bedroom closet, where I keep my professional papers and my homeschool preschool curriculum, and past years of my kids' school papers and artwork.

 

[morgan98]

I wanted to point out paper....

As a accountant (by training and long ago) and an IT professional - keep paper copies. By the time the IRS gets around to wanting your five year old records, you may have kept them on a computer that died, or have them in software that is no longer made and isn't compatible. Alternatively, keep backups, and keep all your documentation in standard forms, like a PDF. You probably don't need to hang onto much (if you are writing off 1/10th of your water bill because you have a home office, you'll need to hang onto the water bill, but if the water bill is paid and done and doesn't show up on your taxes, you don't need it), what you do hang onto needs to be accessible.

I end up with one inch wide hanging file each year of tax returns and associated documentation and bank and brokerage year end statements. And I almost never touch those files again.

I completely understand what you are saying. I have signed large returns for billion dollar companies and have dealt with the IRS dozens of times (been practicing now for 23 years) and am aware of retention requirements. I keep everything in PDF format in addition to the annual paper copies. Our year end file is slightly over an inch wide also.

I guess I was only posting to point out that unless you have serious business deductions or other out of the ordinary items, there is no reason to keep the mounds of paper records that one can accumulate every month.

 

[ctc917]

Thanks everyone for letting me know what you have found to be helpful to you to keep the pile of paperwork from becoming overwhelming in our lives...
If anyone else wants to add information I welcome it....

thanks
ctc917

 

[SuzanneSLO]

Since we don't write off anything house related for the business, utility bills aren't tax records. Once they are paid, I don't need them.

For utility bills not related to rental properties, I only keep them for one month. When a new bill comes, I can compare it to the old one, then toss the old one. Rinse. Repeat.

I'm old school enough that if I need to compare something in detail, I need a paper copy. So I try to keep enough recent information that I don't need to print things out for review. I also like to get bills mailed to me, both as a reminder to me and as a reminder to anyone who might take over my affairs if I pass. -- Suzanne

 

[tvguy]

For utility bills not related to rental properties, I only keep them for one month. When a new bill comes, I can compare it to the old one, then toss the old one. Rinse. Repeat.

I'm old school enough that if I need to compare something in detail, I need a paper copy. So I try to keep enough recent information that I don't need to print things out for review. I also like to get bills mailed to me, both as a reminder to me and as a reminder to anyone who might take over my affairs if I pass. -- Suzanne

I just put solar panels on my house and I had to have a year's worth of electric bills so they could justify to my electric company the size system they were installing. But I suspect I could have gotten duplicate copies from my electric company. Apparently the tax credits for solar state your system cannot be larger than how much electricity you use in the heaviest use month. They have to buy any excess power your produce, but they don't want you turning your roof into a mini-utility company.