Paperwork. It seems like despite our best efforts, it tries so hard to accumulate both at home and at work. After being stressed by paperwork for years, a little research and practical application can go a long way in reducing personal paperwork. In this post, I’m sharing four useful tips to help minimize your life on paper.
Because minimalism and organization can also be applied to your legal and financial documents. And you know I love minimalism!
SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCES & POLICIES AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
It helps to keep track of your legal and financial matters if they are as simple as possible. Keep accounts and policies in fewer institutions and you’ll have less to keep up with.
Our mortgage, joint checking, savings, and emergency funds are all held with one local bank. It makes our day-to-day finances so much simpler. We do have retirement policies and our sinking fund accounts at separate institutions.
My IRA has fared better with Fidelity than it ever did with our local bank, and my husband’s retirement plan is through his employer. He gets an employer match, so it just makes sense to contribute through the employer plan.
Our sinking funds are kept at a separate local bank to further separate them from regular budget accounts. This prevents us from the temptation to pull money from those two accounts into our joint account for other purposes. Our Christmas savings account isn’t even attached to a debit card to further reduce temptation.
But how do you keep track of all these accounts? This leads to the second tip to help minimize your life on paper.
OPT FOR PAPERLESS WHENEVER POSSIBLE
I’ve noticed any time we open a new account or make a change we tend to get paper statements until I go back in and update our preferences. We much prefer online statements. It’s better for the environment and reduces the amount of paper coming into your house to begin with.
Plus, when you have online banking you can pull previous statements free of charge within a certain time frame. Why mess with a paper statement when it’s literally at your fingertips already?
If your utility companies or other creditors allow for paperless billing sign up! Just about every vendor and their dog have their own app now, so you have access to account information anytime. Why hold onto paper if you don’t have to?
Our insurance company app has all of our policies and coverage listed. I no longer keep new declarations pages or other inserts that used to come in the mail. It’s all there when I need it.
If you feel a reason to hold onto it long term and it isn’t accessible online
KEEP IMPORTANT PAPERS AS LONG AS YOU NEED TO… THEN SHRED THEM TO MINIMIZE YOUR LIFE ON PAPER
Do you know how long to keep important papers? Chances are if you don’t, you probably hold onto them a lot longer than necessary. At one point I considered investing in a file cabinet or safe to hold a plethora of documents… then I looked up how long I needed to keep them. The shredder saw a lot of use after that.
HOW LONG TO KEEP IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS
- The IRS states that records need to be kept three years from the date filed or two years after the tax bill is paid, whichever is later. If you file a claim, you’ll need to hold onto those records for seven years. But your 1999 tax return? Shred it and forget it.
- Loan documents should be kept at least one year after the payoff. Feel free to shred them after a couple of years.
- Always keep current insurance policies and estate planning documents. But again, double-check to see if your policies are accessible through your insurance company’s app.
If you’re on the fence about something, you can always scan it.
RECURRING BILLS
If you do get bills in the mail (we still get a few), don’t hold onto them any longer than necessary; I only keep paper copies of the current month and the previous month on hand unless there’s an issue.
At the beginning of a new month, go through both folders, shred what is no longer needed from the previous month, and move on with your life.
GO THROUGH IT PERIODICALLY TO MINIMIZE YOUR LIFE ON PAPER!
In addition to recurring bills, I have file folders for documents to hold on for the current tax year, one for each child’s current school year info, and a file folder of things to scan. This file typically consists of kids’ artwork. After it’s displayed for a bit on the fridge or gallery wall, it goes into the scan folder.
Periodically I’ll scan (or snap a photo if it’s too large) and recycle the paper if possible. This helps minimize the clutter significantly; even when I slack off on keeping it organized, I know ten minutes or less is all it will take to get my desk organized again.
Once a year or so is enough to go over the big financial documents; pull out older tax years, paperwork for any accounts or policies you no longer have, shred, and be done with it.
Yes, it’s just that simple. Once you get through the initial round of organization and minimalization, maintenance is pretty easy. So what are you waiting for? Go tackle that paperwork!