N/A - Getting more organized

[flhrci]

So, a "friend" I know wants to get a little more organized. He has important papers in several places around his apartment that he needs to keep for periods of time that maybe be a month or might be one or two years or more. These papers can include insurance statements, receipts/invoices for tax purposes for next year, billing statements that need to be paid, etc, etc. Anyone got a good way of organizing this stuff that my "friend" might be interested in? He is tired of looking for something and not finding it right away. Some things are stored digitally already, like last year's tax stuff. The stuff on paper needs a temporary home.

He would also like it to be easy for a relative to rifle through in an emergency.

Thanks for my "friend",

David

 

[SkyDog58]

I've heard of these things called file folders and file cabinets. They might work.

 

[ARFlyer]

I recommend geological strata filing. It's quite simple.

 

[eman1200]

A scanner?

 

[Anymouse]

For paper records, I keep pretty much everything in file folders. At the end of the year (sometimes it's after a few years), I gather all the stuff that should be kept and put them in a large envelope with the year marked on it. That goes into a big tupperware like bin with all the previous years. From time to time I go into a shredding frenzy to clean out the previous decades. This normally happens when I have a hard time adding another year's worth of paperwork.

Major items, such as house mortgage, car or aircraft purchase, insurance policies, etc. simply goes into it's own folder. After such items are sold or are no longer valid, the paperwork goes into it's own envelope to join all the old stuff in the tupperware like bin. Insurance that is no longer needed or valid simply goes into the shredder.

As far as receipts go, I scan them using Neat Receipts. That actually has saved my bacon a few times when I needed to find an old receipt. And, IIRC, the IRS is now accepting non-altered PDF copies of receipts.

For digital copies of statements and what not, they all go into appropriate folders under a master folder called "Statements." I name the individual files appropriately as well (Ex: POA Invoice 06-16.pdf)

 

[denverpilot]

The system itself is usually not hard to design, even for the weirdest person, to match their thinking. The discipline to always do it, is what's lacking.