I am freak when it comes to organization....well....I use to be. I do like order and I DESPISE clutter, but over the years, when I've been overwhelmed by something, I tend to shove stuff, because I have no solution. Our financial papers are the thing that I most despise and can't seem to handle. I tend to keep every receipt and every possibly important paper, warranty, etc. This causes an overflow of paper! The drawer we use for our "stuff" is OVERFLOWING! When we moved last May, instead of going through all the papers, I shoved them in a bag and yes, you guessed it....that bag still sits in our laundry room today. No shredding has been done. It still sits. So now I have at least a year, possibly two years of STUFF to sort through and manage. We do not have a home office, so we do need a solution that would be easy to store in very little space! In the past I've saved stuff for a year, gone through it and then whatever needed to be kept- bills, taxes, warranty papers, etc., we've boxed away and labeled. Since we've been married, I've done that for maybe 2 yrs....maybe 3..... the rest.....Its all somewhere. I am just overwhelmed. How many times have I said that? I need a solution. I need system. Like I said, I tend to keep anything and I just think, if I throw away that receipt, watch something not turn out right on the bank/credit card statement and then I don't have the receipt.
So anyway, that is my challenge to myself...to find a system that works for me. It needs to be simple enough to do with 3 kids and not too complicated that if I can't do it for a month or two, that its too overwhelming to pick it back up. Hope that makes sense! Any suggestions?!
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This is a huge problem for me also! I do have a system but it also gets backed up. It has helped that I have set up to pay most of our bills online. I don't do automatic deductions because I feel like I need the control to know when the money is coming out but, I do have most of our bills e-mailed to us. Then, when I pay the bill, I copy and paste the confirmation into a word document and save it in a folder Bills-2009-Utilities, etc.. This has helped cut down on the paper a lot! I do keep receipts for tax purposes. With that, I just use envelopes with the different categories written on the front. I picked up a napkin holder at a yard sale and use labeled file folders in it (Bills Due, items to be filed, school stuff for Emma, bank statements etc) It's really easy to slip things into those folders really quickly and then when I do take the time to put them away, I don't have near as much sorting to do. The next time you come over, I'll show you how I organize things. That is, if I get the time to get it back in shape before then!
I used to be like that too. But now I have a closet I stuff everything into lol! I really need to find something that works for me too, I hate opening the door to that closet. Ugh. lol!
Keep your receipts in one place until you balance the checkbook (or whatever)then throw them away. But, make sure you keep the ones that are worth it for tax purposes. My dad does the box thing- one big box he throws stuff in throughout the year that he knows he'll need for taxes so everything is in one place. I have a whole box dedicated to instruction manuals and warranty info in my shed. You could also consider keeping the bills and such for a month and throw them away when you get the next months statements and see that everything is fine.
Keep your receipts in one place until you balance the checkbook (or whatever)then throw them away. But, make sure you keep the ones that are worth it for tax purposes. My dad does the box thing- one big box he throws stuff in throughout the year that he knows he'll need for taxes so everything is in one place. I have a whole box dedicated to instruction manuals and warranty info in my shed. You could also consider keeping the bills and such for a month and throw them away when you get the next months statements and see that everything is fine.
We are sooo bad around here with all the paper stuff. I am so unorganized, and I kind of need to be because we don't have much storage in our house. I know it can be very frustrating!!
Papers that have to be stored are the bane of my existence! We need a new file cabinet to start with; beyond that, it's all about keeping up with it (for me, anyway). Good luck finding a system!
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