Filing Overhaul - Part One

Photo courtesy of Richard Dudley

I'm finally ready to tackle the filing cabinet. It took me a long time to decide what method I would use to file our paperwork this year. I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to waste time filing, which lead me to decide to mix two of the options that I listed HERE.

My plan is to go paperless as much as possible.(Option 1) Our credit cards, bank accounts and Verizon bill will all be online only. I'll set up my blackberry to remind me to pay these bills each month. I will only file a printed confirmation paper when I pay these bills online.

All other paper work will be filed using Option 3 -Like bills in a single file folder. For example all of our credit card statements go in one file folder, "Credit Cards" instead of having a folder for each individual credit card company. All of our utilities (phone, electric, gas etc) go in one general "Utilities" folder.

Here is an idea of what my files will look like:

INCOME: (pay stubs or other income documents)

LOAN: (Yes we're still paying off our wedding)

UTILITIES: (electric, phone, cell phone, trash, oil, gas, etc)

CREDIT CARD: (I hope we won't need this category for long)

INSURANCE: (includes: Medical, car and renters)

HSA: (our health savings account will have it's own folder so I can keep track of our medical expenses)

CAR: (car loan info, repairs etc)

IMPORTANT PAPERWORK: (We have some important info like a copyright release for our wedding photos and other miscellaneous stuff.)

CHILDREN: (This is used for everything from Baby Well Check reports, cards the kids receive and other memorabilia for the kids)

I'm sure I'm missing a few categories. I hope that by the end of the week I can carve out a few hours to get this done and post some pictures of a pretty and organized drawer of files!!

I'll also share with you how we organize all of those pesky product manuals so that when your new remote goes crazy and you can find the TV manual to reset all the codes!