How to Know When It Is Time to Purge Your Home Filing Systems

Can your home filing system no longer fit in your file drawers?  Diligently filing your important paperwork in order to keep your home clean and organized may have left you in need of more filing space!  Is the solution really to add a file cabinet?  It may be time to purge your home filing systems instead.  Sending paperwork that used to be necessary to keep through the shredder may be what we need!  But how do you know what you still need to keep and what to shred?  The following is a simple guide about what you can get rid of and what you should save.

Recycle Immediately:  Some kinds of paperwork can be recycled immediately, don’t include them in your home filing systems.  Receipts that you don’t need for warranties, taxes, or insurances purposes don’t have to be saved.  Among these ATM and grocery receipts.  Be smart, if you don’t need that ATM receipt don’t even print it out!

30 to 45 Days:  It is a good idea to keep your utility bills until you receive the next month’s bill.  Shred the previous month’s bill once you confirm that the bill was recorded and paid correctly.  Do the same for your bank statement, unless of course you need your bank statements for tax purposes.  Identity thieves use credit card statements as a key source.  Because of this reason any statements, which again you don’t need for tax reasons, need to be securely shredded once you have seen the accuracy of the statement and applied payment.

One Year:  Your paystubs should be kept until you receive your W-2.  Verify that your W-2 is the same as the information you have on your pay stubs and then shred your paystubs.  If you do find differences you can request a W-2c, or a corrected W-2.  

Seven Years:  All tax returns and other tax documents, such as W-2s, receipts, and other statements for seven years should be saved for seven years.  Wondering why?  The IRS can conduct an audit within three years if it suspects good faith errors.  Within six years if they believe you have grossly under reported your income.  That is to say you have under reported your income by at least 25 percent.  The IRS, however, does not have an audit time limit if you either did not file a return or if they suspect you filed a fraudulent return.   

For Your Safe Deposit or Fire Box:  Select documents must be kept permanently and safe from potential danger.  They may be hard to reproduce or just crucial to have.  Documents that deal with identification for example: birth/death certificates, wills, a copy of your driver’s license, your social security card, and passports. A list of bank and credit card account numbers is a good idea.  Prescriptions to life saving drugs, like insulin and inhalers, can be stored safely. 

Keeping the paper:  Sowhat do you ACUTALLY need to keep in paper form?  Many of these documents can be found on the internet from bank documents to credit card statements.  For tax returns or other documents that you may have saved on your computer create back up files.  An secondary location for at least one of your backups is a good idea when storing important documents electronically.  Try keeping a copy at your home and one in your office.  It is rare these days that the IRS would demand an original copy, but you do need to make sure you can produce a paper copy if needed.

When you find your home filing systems full to bursting with papers take a second look at what you are storing.   It could have been both appropriate and necessary to store all the papers you filed at one time, but you may no longer need to keep them.  Up to date home filing systems means shredding documents you have previously filed in addition to adding in new and relevant documents.  Start weeding out your old paperwork today!