Kevin's Weblog

67) Organize old financial records: throw out unneeded stuff, create a system for archiving the remains.

Yesterday, I shredded most of 2001-2004.

Or, rather, I shredded most of my financial records from those years. It was fairly cathartic, although my shredder may disagree. I think it was a little overwhelmed by it all — I filled the bin 8 times within a couple hours.

I got rid of: auto loan statements, statements from unused bank accounts, credit card statements, utility bills, paystubs (except final one of each year), receipts for anything not under warranty and not tax related, frequent flier statements

I kept: auto service records (for cars I still own), proof of auto insurance, anything tax related (including car registration, education expenses, medical expenses), loan payoff letters, end-of-year credit card summaries, annual credit reports, records of credit disputes. I also kept the bank statements from my primary bank, and all my brokerage statements. Arguably, I could pare those down as well, although it’s surprising how often I end up digging through brokerage statements which are years old.

Next step: Now that my yearly accordian files are pathetically empty, I need to switch to another format for archiving the stuff I’m keeping.