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

[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.