Paper Clutter

[cjsmith]

Counting the deep drawers in desks, I have nineteen file drawers in one room of my house. Ten of them currently hold my filed paper. (Well, okay, nine and a half. I just spent an hour throwing away stuff.)

Whether I go paperless or not, the first step is to throw out about six drawers' worth of files I don't need. For example, I have my pay stubs back to the beginning of my current job. Do I really need all my pay stubs for all my PREVIOUS jobs? Do not doubt for a minute that I have them, every one.

Comments

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Assuming your employer is not some small business with questionable accounting, once you have looked at a pay stub to be sure the amounts are correct, you should throw it away. The aggregates (which are all that matters) will be reported to you in your W2.

All financial records over 6 years old should be tossed (exception: items to establish basis of a major investment on which capital gains may be due.) All monthly bills and reciepts shoudl be tossed after at most three years (unless needed for tax purposes, in which case the 6 year rule applies.)

Thanks!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the guidelines!

How long should I keep the ones from small businesses with questionable accounting? (Those aren't very recent, but I do have some, so I'm curious.) Three years? Six? Just until their 1099 turns out to agree?

To be sure I understand: keep stock / real estate purchase records until after you've sold the item?

I always thought the 6 year rule was 7, but I don't know where I got that idea. So... even tax statements, you'd pitch after six years? (I have every one I've ever filed.)

Re: Thanks!

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

If there's any issue which might require proof of the ongoing accounting errors, hold onto the stubs until it's resolved or moot (likely after a few years). Otherwise, if they agree with the 1099 and that's what you've reported, toss'em.

In practice 6 years is plenty, since almost all audits are done by 2-3 years from the tax year in question.

And yes, that's right -- anything which would be subject to capital gains, keep records of purchase and any adjustments to basis like capital expenditures and spinoffs. In practice, this means keep bills for improvements to your house, even if you don't expect to pay capital gains -- in California you might go above the exemption for personal residences after a few more years.

Re: Thanks!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

until it's resolved or moot

OK -- then I'm even out of the woods on the guys who 1099'd me what they OWED rather than what they'd PAID, since that happened about ten years ago now. Cool!

And yes, we've kept all the stuff for home improvement. That exemption for personal residences isn't unreachable for a house in this area.

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't be quite that aggressive; there are other factors than tax horizons. Knowing old account numbers could be relevant, for example, if credit issues arise. Don't need more than one or two pieces of paper for that, though.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

True, it's wise to keep information about any "issues" with credit, but that's an exception. And of course CJ wouldn't have too many credit accounts...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I apparently have had quite a few accounts. My credit report stuns me. It has thud factor!

Fortunately, it's fairly clean. *phew*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Do you mean keep account numbers even if today's credit report says they're closed and clean, just in case next year's says something wonky?

[oddhack.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Mostly just my paranoia, but I think it's worth keeping a record of what accounts I've had, and when they were closed, rather than completely flushing all the records.

Now that we can get annual free credit reports, that offers some increased assurance that no weirdness has come up (say, the Emporium-Capwell card I never paid off the last 36 cents balance for, in 1989 :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I have never had weirdness come up after the fact, but sometimes it rears its head at the time I close the account. I remember the nightmare of trying to close out my Macy's card. I learned that it had inexplicably turned into TWO ACCOUNTS, only one of which they bothered to tell me about and bill me for. So I was something like six months delinquent on the phantom account. Gah! But several phone calls and one big check later, they agreed to wipe the whole mess.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

It's not just paranoia, regrettably. An error in reporting almost 20 years ago, still occasionally re-appears on my personal credit.

I just go back to Equifax with the proof that I'm not the person they want (who really should clean up his act!) After that, I'm free for a while.

Come to think of it, it's been about eight years since the last issue, and three since I last checked on it. Note to self.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Note to self.

Yeah. I've always been told people should go get their credit reports every year. Recently someone morphed that to, since there are three main reporting companies, "fetch one every four months." I've NEVER been good about that. Bad disorganized lazy me, right? :-/

So a coupla weeks ago I put a fake "meeting" in MeetingMaker (my job's online calendar system). The agenda has the URL (I use http://www.annualcreditreport.com/). Every four months I will get a reminder, and with no brainpower required I will click on the link provided, and *poof* I will fetch a credit report from the next of the Big Three. It's simple and stupid and I sort of feel like I shouldn't need to plan like that for such a small task. On the other hand, maybe it'll WORK! We'll see.

[platypus]

Ken has phone bills from the 1980's, I believe.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

So do I. Admittedly, some of those are sentimental. I was in France and Rob was asking the biggest question (thus far) he'd ever asked me: "when you get back to the States would you consider moving to California?" All those phone calls went on my AT&T card. They had to increase my monthly limit :-)

That said, I could pitch them all and not feel the loss. I still have the important bit -- Rob is still in my life!

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

i'd keep the year-end paystub, if anything, and stick it with tax info. sure, it's duplicated on a w2, but it couldn't hurt. but i'd only go back the 6-7 years. i did finally pitch paystubs from my first job. omg, what a riot those were!

all of my tax stuff (including paid bills, insurance/meds receipts, etc) all fits neatly into a letter-sized envelope box swiped from work. keeping utility bills (and having them in boxes by year) going back 7 years helped me sort out some identity theft stuff, by proving i'd lived where i lived going back beyond the date of the fraudulent activity.

i should take a cue from you: i haven't put away paperwork in *ages* and haven't touched Quicken since last summer. *groans*

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Most of my jobs have a pay period crossing 12/31. Makes a year-end pay stub kind of weird. I was about to go pitch all my pay stubs from my earliest jobs and some of the oldest credit card statements and I just realized THOSE AREN'T IN THE FILE CABINETS! They're boxed in long-term storage, in the garage! Yeesh. I have ten nine and a half file drawers of stuff and the vast majority of it is since 2000.

Oh yikes, identity theft is a nightmare. I have no idea what I'd do if someone got their hooks into me like that. *shiver*

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll race you! I have 14 boxes of old paperwork to get through from 1976 forward, 13 boxes of which I hope to destroy!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh holy moly! Something tells me I already lost that race. :-)

I've now pitched another half-drawer or so.

[airporter.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your fever!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks! The one fever that feels kinda good! :-)

I really wish I knew how to produce such a fever on demand. Some days I'm just down and grumpy and unproductive, and man, if I could flip a switch...