Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: How Do You File Paper Documents At Home?
swamp boy writes "How do you file paper documents at home? I'm mostly asking about things like monthly paper-based statements that get mailed to you (credit cards, gas cards, medical bills, health insurance explanation of benefits, electricity bill, natural gas bill, water bill, etc.). Do you push to have as many sent electronically as possible? Do you scan the paper documents to store electronically and then shred the paper document? How do you manage and organize the ones stored electronically? I've been doing this the old-fashioned way with manila file folders, but as time goes by I keep thinking that I should opt for digital storage. What works for you?"
If you have a court case which requires the documents, I'm pretty sure that printing out your electronic copy won't really work, because you could have easily modified it while it was stored there.
To answer original question - I have a big file. Sometimes I prefer having something physical that can be brought out as proof.
You must be in the United States? In most of the world, such paper bills have been obsolete for at least a decade.
It's the only way.
I keep the absolute minimum amount of paper lying around.
Bills get payed and then shredded. Why keep them? Same for almost every other piece of paper. My yearly insurance policy gets stuck in a binder (and the old one gets shredded). Oh, and I keep the ownership documents for my house. That's it. If everything in my paper 'archive' is 50 pages total I'm being generous.
There is no need to keep all that junk around. In fact, I wouldn't need the paper that I do keep, because if I would ever need it I can have a replacement copy sent.
now I just put them in a shoe box....
Then burn or shred them after a year.
Rick B.
Almost all of them I can get in digital form anyway, so MOST of them I glance at, then promptly shred. The ones I can't get digitally, I file in a file cabinet as I don't have a good way to digitize them at home (I could do it at work, but it's not that big a deal). How many do I actually file per year? maybe a dozen. Most of them are tax related. All the actual statements for credit cards, etc can all be retrieved digitally from the company.
For this very purpose, I switched last year to using evernote, with a scanner for those items I can't yet get electronically. Working well. (Just between you and me, it's all just an excuse for me to use the shredder as often as possible.)
I've found that it's still just easier to file in manila folders by month. I rarely ever need to pull paper documents out anymore, but if I do need them they are there and I've got only one month of stuff to sort through. I tried scanning everything and backing up locally for about two months but dropped that method when crunch time at work rolled around.
Hanging folders with labels by category and year. Most categories only need 1 folder per year. At the end of the year, I move them to a "history" storage box and start a new set of folders.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Most invoices I get or can retrieve electronically. For stuff that has to be saved long term it gets put in a manilla right away. When I refinance I received 100+ legal pages I may never need to look at again. Scanning it would be a waste of time. Same for tax documents.
And shred as often as possible.
Like any other data storage problem you have to ask yourself how you will access this data. For me there is a high probability that I will never look at an old phone bill or gas bill. In this case you want to optimize for insertion into the data store not selection from the data store. so I stick all of these statements into a big box. The more recent ones are on top so they are automatically sorted by date. When the box fills up I shred the bottom half of the box. This makes the most common case (insertion) really efficient; I just throw the paper in the box. In the rare case I need to find an old statement, I just hunt through the date sorted statements.
Do you push to have as many sent electronically as possible?
I wish we lived in a world in which there was a secure electronic equivalent to document delivery. The technology exists, but nobody uses it.
As it is, the standard is for every company I deal with to require a separate login which gives me a web interface to tracking down the documents I need. Maybe they'll send a generic email when something new arrives. The problem is that this raises the convenience barrier so high that I rarely see the documents I'm being sent when they arrive — it happens when I'm already on the site and looking around. Which means I have to remember to go to the site.
When I get something in the mail, in contrast, I can look at it immediately, and then if necessary I can put it in a to-do box, which gives me a clear indication, in one place, of all the stuff I need to deal with.
I store it both ways: Electronic for the searching and paper for the legal. I keep my bills for two years and then toss them. Account statements and the like I keep forever. (Anyone who has ever been through a contested divorce will appreciate the value of paper and permanent files.)
What's paper?
If I die unexpectedly, my wife will be able to (a) easily see the new documents coming in, and (b) easily see the old documents that I have on file. I use hanging folders, with each business' documents going back in time five years.
Buy a Fujitsu Scansnap -- only $254 on Amazon, and does a great job of quickly scanning piles of documents. I use the software included with the Scansnap to manage the scanned documents -- the software is quirky and quite outdated, but it was developed for your use case, and works out better in the long run than a more polished, general purpose piece of software.
Scan your entire backlog of documents, then shred everything. No more paper storage. The PDFs that the Scansnap generates are fine for legal purposes; big companies use the same software for their documents and their lawyers are fine with it.
Err on the side of not categorizing and not shredding. Only categorize into folders the stuff that you're likely to need to access by category in the future (e.g. tax documents). Everything else goes back into the envelope it came in. For bills, write "paid" on the front.
Use an appropriately-sized box to hold old mail neatly. Stick the newly-archived mail in the front (or top) of the stack such that it naturally sorts in a coarse reverse-chronological order. It's not too hard to go back through this to find stuff if you need it later and you'd probably never need to look further back than a year anyway.
Above all, don't spend more energy on the problem than it merits or else it will become a burdensome chore.
Do like me and I assume everyone else by throwing it in a box and enjoying the thrill of adventure when you are digging through the box to find what you need.
http://www.stopacop.so -- You have rights. How about standing up for them before they go away?
I like to call it a set of stacks, but it's really more of a heap. Old stuff goes in a boxed linked list.
Get a sequential numbering stamp, stamp your documents, and file them in order.
Then keep info about them in a database, inputting both the unique number, and free-form tags about the document.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Just about all documents these days goes to my electronic mailbox instead of snailmail. http://www.e-boks.dk/page.aspx?pageid=f7b9da3d-2ee8-4309-ba0e-ae4cf895eb9b
everything from the goverment, electric bills, heating, bank, loans, credit cards, water, retirement fund, taxes, phone, internet, cable TV. I can sort them in folders, download them as PDF etc and buy extra space to upload personal documents i have scanned or whatever.
It is possible because I have a national ID(the horror). https://www.nemid.nu/om_nemid/about_nemid/
I have always had a terrible mess in all my documents and spent hours sorting them, looking for something and so on, but this really works well.
Lots of them. All over the house. It's a mess.
I follow IRS rules and keep 7 years of documents. When possible, I have bills electronically sent to me and I simply file them in folders in G-mail.
Each January, I create a new set of file folders (physical) that mirror the previous year's folder structure. Then, I shred the files from 8 years ago. Takes an entire hour. My files for current year and past year are in the top drawer of a 4-drawer file cabinet. The other 5 years' stuff is stored 2 drawers down. The 2nd drawer holds things like insurance info and instructions/directions (indirections??) for house-hold "stuff". The bottom drawer is for home-owners stuff, personal stuff. etc.
My work files are stored under my desk in a double-drawer horizontal filing cabinet. It holds all things work-related. But, the top drawer closest to me holds anything that is currently going on in my life, so that I have instant access when I get phone calls, e-mails, etc. On top of that, I have an organizer on my desk that holds really, really current stuff that would include stuff that I will be working with on any given day.
I have been doing this for years, and it works, as long as you keep a maintenance routine. Easy habits to get into and I am never searching through piles like I see others doing. My desk stays neat and organized and I always have what I need for any day right in front of me.
Being organized like this is essential to increasing personal productivity and producing quality work.
It is stupidly easy, but I would say that maybe less than 5% of people can achieve a high-level of organization.
Your question might come across as dumb to other slashdotters, but I find it incredibly relevant.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
1)I scan them 2)store in my pc (directory with dates) 3)burn a copy to CD/DVD 4)get a hermetic plastic bag, put a CD and papers inside together 5)put bag of Silica Gel with them, seal 6)print on label printer -dates of archive, stick on bag 7)put bag in cabinet, in the basement. I hope one day i can put in this bags dry nitrogen, instead of air, and get better bags, and thermal labels maybe will discolour after while, but i don't want to look more insane, than i am now. P.S. I keen even checks from supermarket, and thermal ones tend to discolor after 3 years, but it is just for fun.
When I receive a document, I file it by type: electricity/phone/rent/misc/salary stub/insurance/....
In january. I put all of them in a big envelop and write the year on it.
moding it down doesn't make it less true.
I have some shelves with box files containing all important paper documents.There is no way I am trusting my own electronic storage to hold the data as it is still way too fragile and scanning everything is a massive chore. Your time should be worth more than that. Far more efficient to keep the paper and shred years later.
For electronic stuff it tends to be things kept on the systems of the bank or utility company so I only have to login to their systems to get hold of it.
I've got Fujitsu Fi-6130 for 3 years by now - although it was expensive - it was/is worth every penny
I get two layer PDF - scan + OCR which should be good enough as proof and searchable too.
Very timely topic, as I am looking to go as paperless as possible myself. I just went through a couple of filing cabinet drawers and got rid of 18" of paper that didn't need to be kept past a year.
One obstacle to getting soft copies of utilities, bank, brokers, etc. is that most of them put not effort in naming the pdf version of your statements. Thus, you have to rename each by hand (Schwab being an exception). Also, they usually pay no attention to how many clicks are required to download two successive months. Does anyone have GreaseMonkey scripts or some such for the major providers to ease the task?
Once downloaded I back this up locally and through a SaaS provider. That has got to be safer than my filing cabinet.
I throw all my mail in a box. I go through it once a year to do my taxes.
Having looked at this for my business, as well as for personal stuff, I think the first thing to think about, for each category of document, why you need to save it, and how you are likely to use it. For things that you are required to save, like tax documents, I am not sure that electronic storage is sufficient -- you may need the paper. On the other hand, keeping the paper doesn't mean you have to work with the paper. Scan them, by all means, and use your electronic files as an index. I have a regular-size filing cabinet with hanging folders (by year for tax info, for example), which I very rarely look into. For other things that you may keep for reference, electronic records may be fine. And some stuff, like old utility bills, is probably not worth keeping at all.
I pretty much shred everything. I only keep paper copies of things like tax returns, and only for seven years. All that stuff fits in a hand held file box.
Paper folder with dividers, hole puncher, file and forget. I have sections for the things I might need again like work contract & related, apartment & related, insurance & related, tax reporting and related and so on then a big section of general bills/receipts. I don't bother with the date on it, I simply file them in the order I put them in - it's close enough that I don't bother. The electronic ones I hope either who I got them from or my webmail provider will keep - at least one of them. Those I generally just pay and if all else goes nuclear I'll just have the bank statement but I accept that risk.
Most of my bills I don't really even see, they get paid automatically with a transfer limit. If they're higher than expected then they'll be stopped and I'll get mail that the payment was not completed, either because they raised prices or they did a mistake in billing. It's as simple as that.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They fall over when they get more than about 2' high, though.
Also, the parrot chews on them.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I get two bills by mail and I can check the status of them online (they just won't stop sending me paper bills).
They usually don't get opened and just thrown in the garbage. Is that a great idea? No. I should probably shred them, but I'm lazy and too cheap to buy a shredder.
Each year as the year goes on, I toss everything into a "inbasket". Then come tax time (usually around New Years), I dump out the box, sort through and organize the receipts. I'll put all the gas receipts together in order & staple them, electric receipts together and staple them, etc. Then I extract all the tax info into a single spreadsheet, making a note on the source (e.g. for a deductible item on a credit card, I note the card and the month of the statement with that item.) Finally, I dump everything into a bag and put that bag in a "banker's storage box;" I can usually fit 2 bags (2 years) into a single box. Then I stick that box in the closet, and hope I don't get audited. This usually takes about 10 hours over a 2-3 day period. The core principle here is "don't do today what you can put off until tomorrow, or whenever the item is really needed." :-)
The exceptions to this are receipts associated with home improvements, which go into a separate folder (so I can deduct them from the value of the house when I sell it), car repair receipts (each car has a separate folder so I have, at least in principle, full service records for that car), any permanent legal documents which go into their own "permanent save me" folder, and finally the taxes themselves. I print out the full set of tax reports/forms (from TurboTax) and also save the full set of tax forms as a PDF. That PDF goes into a folder that is part of what I back up in multiple copies (along with digital photographs, scanned family records/genealogical documents, etc).
There are sites that provide retention advice for various classes of receipts.
Definitely scan & shred. It's only a little bit more time to stick paper in the scanner to my left and scan than it would be to file the paper in even the loosest of physical filing systems--and then I never ever have to touch that piece of paper again. (Well, OK, I toss it on the floor, then when I get up later pick up the pile and stuff it in the shredder--that that is the last time I touch the paper.) To me, definitely worth it to be done with it once and for all.
One folder per year, within that one folder per category (where categories are broad: household, mortgage, medical expenses, health insurance...), file named with date & description.
Of course not everybody has a half dozen or so high-speed document scanners in their office. (I write software for them...)
I started scanning years ago and ultimately got a high-speed, two-sided scanner to accomplish the task. My file structure isn't that different than the way I used physically file documents.
Company Name ->
Year ->
Document Name
with document name having a format of [YYYY-MM-DD description]
I debated lots of different filing/naming technique and settled on this one because it's easier for my wife to find a document and I can delete a company's documents based on the year.
Since initially setting this up, most of the companies with whom I do business offer on-line documents. I still download those and file them in my structure so I can go to documents as needed. I choose the downloaded versions because they're much smaller than the ones I manually scan.
Overall this was a convenient method for filing and wasn't much more than that until about 3 years ago when I created an expense/inventory system. I created my own just for fun and because I wanted to track categories of expenses differently than the ways provided by commercial packages and I wanted a system where I owned the data but had it accessible online. With this system, documents and receipts are linked from the expense/inventory system.
Up until linking via this system it was of little value other than reducing the amount of paper we kept filed. I'm surprised at the number of times I look up documents, receipts, etc. online. The inventory system came about because we're getting ready to move and will have most of our possessions in storage for an extended period of time. My wife and I went room to room cataloging almost everything, taking a photo and storing the information. Because of the way the system was set up, my wife can look at a photo of a piece of furniture, link to the expense entry from when we bought it and view the documents/receipts associated with that entry.
Thinking about how you're going to access the documents and deal with archiving/deletion will help determine your storage structure.
The process was extremely painful until I got the two-sided, high speed scanner.
I use one of the network-based, off-site storage service providers to back up the systems.
My document archiving works like this:
This works well for me, but obviously ymmv. Keeping documents digitized also keeps them in easy reach and means I only need a small file to keep important documents since older ones are all stored electronically.
While I do get stuff mailed to me if I miss a payment, most things here in Sweden (and I believe most other parts of Europe) allows for e-mail based bills and/or just setting up a periodic wiring of money to an account through the bank's web page. My bank logins are handled using a wireless smartcard reader w/ a PIN keypad. Thus, the only things I need to file are contracts, receipts and other such signed documents; this reduces the paper load to one plastic binder, small enough that you can just flip through it to find the document you want On the other hand, I don't own or purchase many things where it would make sense to keep receipts or warranty agreements, for example.
Occasionally I've needed to submit copies of documents to the government to prove medical expenses or such since privacy laws means that the different state departements cannot easily share such things, but it's rare (however some stuff should probably be kept down in the vault of the local bank, but that's an extra expense.) As for disposal, I just tear them to shreds and throw them in the trash. If I had to dispose of something really sensitive, I guess I'd just slowly burn it under the kitchen vent.
Emotions! In your brain!
I use a commercial app from Neat. It comes bundled with a small sheet scanner that works pretty well. It's small enough to sit on the desk and be shoved out of the way when not in use. The software is fairly comprehensive, allowing scheduled backups to a network share, OCR of documents, business cards, receipts, etc. At the end of the month, I make sure the most recent backup was successful, then shred the paper copies.
I store my documents in plastic files with zipper-like fastener. The files are in different sizes, ones for standard sized paper and smaller ones.
what is this, Lifehacker?
I tend to horde paper documents, so to solve that I moved to a mostly electronic solution. I have three kids in middle school, so sometime the paperwork is overwhelming, but this has helped me cope.
I created a categorized hierarchical directory structure on my PC and scan in every document I receive as a PDF. I label each file with the date and brief description. A few documents I must keep the original copy, such as birth certificates, titles, etc, so those I file in a filing cabinet. I was using Paperport to manage the documents and scans. It works, but it's buggy. I switched to Scanwiz, which is cheaper and much simpler and has less bugs.
Most bank statements and bills I download as PDF and store them in the proper directory.
Since some of the documents I can't afford to lose, I backup them up using CrashPlan. It's the best online backup I've found.
Required: scanner and shredder. Everyone should own a shredder, or take sensitive stuff to one of those commercial shredder services. Otherwise, as some have mentioned, you eventually get hip-deep in paper. A very small number of paper docs need to be kept (auto title, will, e.g.). Use whatever systematic organization you want for scanned documents. You will need good backups including off-site. And a way for selected others to access it if something happens to you. Yes, it's some work to set up, but then it's easy to run and maintain. And if you get everything you can delivered electronically, it saves a lot of paper.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
on the kitchen table until I can't use the table and then into a paper bag in the basement. Why, do you need something?
They're these amazing specialised pieces of furniture that can hold large numbers of folders. Retaining various documents for 7 years is usually required under tax laws in Ireland (and similar in other countries). I bought a four-drawer filing cabinet. shrug. If was doing more, maybe I'd get another, then I'd have one drawer a year and an extra one for permanent stuff, eh?
I picked up a printer/scanner combo with a document feeder, and I scan everything and (save for anything I think I might need for legal reasons) shred the originals.
I file the docs in folders by company name and with a YYYYMMDD-whatever image name or subfolder (for multiple pages). And I upload a backup to my server.
This has worked really well for me; paprework used to be a nightmare to find as I was so bad at filing it. Now I can find anything easily, and even email someone what they're asking for directly from my phone. It's awesome.
I heartily recommend a setup based on a ScanSnap and some sort of organisational filing software. The ScanSnap is a home-office grade document scanner - the main difference to your cheapo scanners is it's focus on documents and it's ability to scan both sides of A4 paper in one pass, achieving at least 20ppm scanning. The software that comes with it should be able to do OCR. I combine this with DevonThink on the Mac which allows me to organise the documents efficiently and search through them - it will allow you to 'tag' documents so that actually finding things is very easy. I have years of documents with me this way, and the documents come with me on the road.
The paper documents I file in a filing cabinet at home. Get a 4 drawer filing cabinet. Get a label maker. File everything in alphabetical order. Use one drawer for 'months' - this will hold documents that you can shred at the appropriate time of year.
GTD is a great method of planning and organisation however people never keep to the strict philosophy and work variations. I would read it. That should get you sorted.
Even a photocopied (as in - copied onto a dead tree format) documents will be useless in many cases if you are required to have the original receipt/bill/invoice.
As for filing...
Stick everything into plastic sheet protectors.
If you need to label them in some way, either attach a post-it from the inside or simply write the label on the sheet protector with a marker.
Put sheet protectors into a binding box or two.
About once a year go through your binders and throw away the bills you no longer need.
Same procedure is useful for storing warranties, manuals and instructions nobody ever reads (but you start looking for them when something needs fixing/replacing).
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
In the freezer. That way they don't get lost.
YOU have 3 from the original due date file/refile and claim a refund
the IRS has 3 years from the due date, or 3 years from the date you file a return if filed late
UNLESS they suspect fraud... then it is longer
some states already have longer
http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/tax-audit-statute-of-limitations-by-state.htm
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have all (well nearly all) of my bills sent to Paytrust.
I set their address as my billing address, when they receive the paper bills, they scan them in and store them for me. Then they pay the bills for me -- I set up payment rules so, for example, if my electric bill is less than $50, they pay it automatically, if it's more than that, they email me an exception notice and wait for me to take action. It's also possible to set a maximum payment, so for example with a credit card bill, I can tell them to pay a maximum of $200 on my bill (or the total payment due if it's less than $200).
For most merchants that have electronic bill retrieval, they retrieve the electronic copy of the bill so I don't have to have a paper bill sent to them.
For merchants that don't send a bill (i.e. my landlord), I can schedule automatic payments (or do one-time payments) just like any online payment service.
They have electronic payment arrangements for most major billers (credit card companies, utilities ,etc), so they don't even need to send out a check in many cases, they pay electronically so there's no chance of the bill getting lost in the mail (though I believe that with some smaller billers, instead of an EFT, they send one paper check for all of their customers along with a list of account numbers to apply the payment to)
In about 10 years of using their service, they've never lost a payment - I've had a few checks in the mail fail to be delivered, but in all but one case, the check eventually made it, it was delayed by the post office.
Some merchants get confused when your billing address is not the same as your physical address. Sometimes they sent notices to the paytrust address, which Paytrust either scans in for you, or if it's something like an auto insurance card, they forward it to you by mail.
The only missing feature that I really wish they had is a way to upload my own invoices, so if I get a bill from my plumber I can upload it to my Paytrust account to store it and send him a check.
At the end of the year, they sell me a CD with all of my bill images on it.
I know this sounds like a paid advertisement for Paytrust, but I am just a very satisfied customer - I'm usually terrible about paying bills on time, Paytrust makes sure I make all of my bills are paid on time. Does anyone know if there any other competing services? My bank's online bill-pay service just doesn't compare - they have no way to receive paper bills and pay them for me.
i lost my w2, but that's okay because i didn't make enough money to be taxed this year
I have an alphabetical file, indexed by category. I maintain an index of category headings, to deal with the problem of losing track of something, if there's multiple ways of filing it. The index is totally ad-hoc (although I suppose a real librarian might file, based on a standardized set of headings).
For tax records, I maintain yearly files, retained for only 7 years. Anything older gets fed into a shredder.
Bank statements are filed, but occasionally, I scan into PDF format and then shred them. I don't, as yet, have any way of converting them into electronic format; which is too bad, because I've played with the idea of running some analytics over my spending and saving habits (and working out much money I blow on junk food every month). I'd love to have able to have bills and bank statements delivered in some kind of secure, standard format, but I don't think anybody (banks or utilities) can be arsed making life easier for their customers.
If you are ever involved in divorce litigation, there is nothing nicer than being able to say "I have no such records" when your deranged spouse's even more deranged bottom-feeding scumbag sends you a discovery request listing 141 categories of documents and demands copies of all paper or electronic records in those categories.
In normal litigation this isn't as much of an issue, because the attorneys are usually able to negotiate a happy medium in which they agree not to issue nuclear-tipped discovery requests and focus on what's actually relevant to the action. In divorce, though, all bets are off, because you're paying both attorneys and an evil one can happily run through all your money (a total with which he is intimately familiar, again unlike normal litigation) by harassing you--your own attorney's fees are just handy collateral damage. Mutual destruction is by far the most profitable outcome for such sharks, since they tend not to get a lot of repeat business. (It's not just divorce, of course: if you're targeted in a SLAPP suit, or, like poor George, have otherwise angered a large corporation, you'll have the same troubles.)
Keep only what you absolutely must. The 7-year deadline is for tax returns, everything else is much more ephemeral. Search for "records retention" to find a variety of helpful guidelines.
After 50-odd years on the planet, I've found that hardly any ordinary paperwork I've kept has ever been useful. Sure, a couple months of bills or bank statements can come in handy, but even a year is more than I have ever needed (as long as I kept track of big items, like the costs of building an addition on the house).
This is especially true of old e-mail. When Cardinal Richelieu said "Give me six lines written by the most honest of men, and in them I will find something with which to hang him", that's what he was talking of. Prescient, he was. Anticipated the Internet and all that it entails.
I got a box with 26 folders in 5 sets of 5 colors plus 1 gray folder. My first thought obviously was a-z but how many q's would i have? So i decided to lump my stuff into 5 really broad categories and rotate the sets each quarter. The last set is long term. When i rotate the 4th quarter back to the current, i purge and move the residue to long term. The 26 th folder is for stuff waiting to be filed.
It works great for me but no one else can figure it out :). Btw, the categories are: stuff about money, cute stuff, stuff about me and the wife, stuff about the kids, and service records. Medical bills is stuff about us not money. I always know where to look
This Years
Last Years
Compost
I use a good old pre-digital hanging lateral file. Hanging filing cabinets can be quite expensive, but a good one with ball bearing slides does the job quite well. A lateral 2-drawer is excellent because you can do letter sized in one drawer, and legal sized in the other.
But the real question is what to keep and why. You want to make it easy to get rid of what you don't need to keep anymore.
Lastly, things permanently installed in a house (new AC units, stoves, etc) should have all their stuff dropped in a drawer in the kitchen. Leave them for the next owner. They will love you.
Now, that you know what to keep you need to get rid of everything else, using a good shredder. Do yourself a favor and go ahead and spring for a quality "small business" unit in the $250-$400 range. The cheap home ones will choke when you try and put your junk mail in them and break after a few years. Your small business one will swallow those credit card offers that come in the mail without even opening, and easily eat your month of bills in one feed once a month.
Scan the paper documents to your hard drive, and throw them into a cardboard box labelled with the year. Record financial transactions in a financial management program like Quicken, and throw all the receipts and statements into that same box. You generally won't ever need to access the paper documents, but you have them if you ever do.
Any electronic documents go into the same scans folder on the hard drive, backed up to a portable USB drive or two.
After a few years, take that cardboard box off the shelf in the garage and burn it.
I just use a big file storage box and toss them in (LIFO queue). Once a year, about tax season, I sift though (query table scan) and toss out the trash (delete query) that got in by accident, pull any missed tax related docs (move queue query). Sometimes I'll stack bills by type or account (bucket sort on doc_type/account), but don't go so far as to alphabetize them (index by date).
You can do reduce the $2 cost to nil by recycling a copy paper box from work.
After 7 years, I pay my kids $20 to shred a box or two for the work ethic.
That stuff is barely worth keeping at all; not worth putting in a file cabinet; and certainly not worth the trouble of digitizing. Put it in a box or drawer chronologically, not even sub-divided by type. (Ok, keep you mortgage and insurance papers filed in a cabinet.) In the rare instance where you need to refer to a credit card bill, you'll find it easily enough. After 5 or 6 years, start purging and shredding the oldest stuff.
No need to over-complicate your life.
I get paper bills for the more important things, but use my bank's bill-pay service to pay them. I file the important pages in a binder (one or two for each year) and shred the rest.
When tax time comes around I get a second, smaller binder and I do a run-through and move tax-related items from the main binder to the smaller one. e.g. car registration, property taxes, donations, tax documents, medical bills, and so forth. The smaller binder gets shipped off to my CPA.
For services paid via credit card I carry two cards. One I use for important recurring services and the other I use for every-day purchases and on-line commerce. That way if a fraudulent charge occurs on the second card I can just close it out without having to call people up on the phone to move the recurring charges (which is a hassle). I also lock the credit limit to a lower value to reduce the card's desirability footprint in the system. This system works really well.
The main reason why I still like to receive paper bills is because it forces me to actually look at what services I am paying for and how much and to really think about whether I need the particular service or the level of service.
-Matt
A big accordian filing box. Makes it easier for the accountant to process receipts and keeps the tax man at bay
Fujitsu ScanSnap500 is the device that does the batch scans. This is actually the only thing I still use Windows for.
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
Really? UK resident here, and I make my car payment any way except via post.
repeat as necessary...
Officially a geek since 1984
I scan everything to google docs, store it with date and etc and pop the copy in a binder above my desk. Works out a binder a year - super neat, and I can always refer to the hardcopy if required - not too much of an overhead to find as every is mostly date ordered.
"I see. The fact that you...`can't explain'.. explains everything."
First, look for a tool that will run your ADF sheetfeed scanner and produce DJVU format docs. This format was invented for specifically this purpose: storing document images. Its outputs are much smaller than PDF, JPG, TIFF, etc.
Next, if you want to index the docs, you probably want to do an OCR on them, at least so you can snag most of the keywords in your index.
I'm using gscan2pdf for these two steps (linux). It runs scanimage, then unpaper, then tesseract/gocr/cunieform.
Finally, you'll need an indexer. On linux, you might look at Catfish, tracker, or beagle.
I've got magazine holders (9x12 boxes with the top and half the side cut off), one for the
current year, then they go on the shelf for past years. Amost eveything goes in on the right side,
so inside it's roughly chronological. That means I can at least go to the year and start
looking through to find what I need. Exceptions: separate tax folders for each year, a box for
cars, school, and investments given the high probability of trying to find those across multiple
years. I work with computers too much to trust them.
I have opted for paperless statements for all of my accounts, but there are always things you get by paper. I use a "Xerox Documate" duplex scanner. It has an automatic document feeder and scans both sides of a document in a single pass directly to .pdf files. Don't waste your time with a scanner without a document feeder. I've found that I can easily get on-line statements from my paperless accounts whenever I need them and I no longer have to keep file drawers for all the rest of it.
First off, I've worked with various electronic payment systems (including building parts of them), I don't trust them, I've seen way too many screwups that end up with hundreds or thousands of users being told variations of "Oh, sorry about charging you ten times the normal amount, we'll have the money back in your account in a fortnight and according to the contract you signed with us we can't be held responsible for any family members of yours who starve to death due to this...".
So while I've been paying all my bills online for over a decade I do still receive paper bills for everything. I keep these in binders sorted in order of the payment date. I also note the date I paid the bill on the bill.
In addition to the paid bills I have a chronologically sorted section at the end of the binder for unpaid bills which I go through at the end of every month, paying those bills that are due.
As for invoices, receipts and such things I keep them in a separate binder sorted by date. I don't save receipts for things like groceries and other minor purchases as I have no reason to do so.
The third group of documents is "random important stuff", once again sorted chronologically, includes things like various official papers from schools, signed verifications of me not having thrashed previous apartments when moving out (always good to keep around just in case a previous landlord decides to be a dick years later, if you have that paper with a signature on it indicating they said the apartment was fine when you moved out then they can't make you pay for the next guy thrashing the apartment and then disappearing).
And finally I have a stack of "sort of important, maybe, or maybe not, I'd better just keep this around for a month or two" papers. I go through this pile at the end of every month while paying bills, throwing out those papers that were either not important or that are no longer important and filing those that should be filed in a binder in the appropriate binder.
This system has worked well for me since I moved to my first apartment and I suspect it will work fine for years to come.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
I used to keep everything. I never needed any of it. Now I throw everything out.
I used to try and separate everything, but eventually I've settled on filing papers in quarterly folders. Personally the amount I get doesn't warrant higher granularity, and on the rare occasion that I need to find a given piece of paper a quarter (for me) doesn't add up to much more than a stack an inch high.
.: Max Romantschuk
I make note of the sum due and round it off to the nearest dollar and pay them all electronically, usually on the same day. The bills themselves land near the round pail or on the floor. Having all that paper makes for less dusting as when I finally pick up the bills the dust is on them and not on the carpet. No, I'm not kidding.
I file important things like financial documents in a filing cabinet (oldest stuff purged after seven years or so) and toss the rest either into the trash, a crosscut shredder, or a cardboard box. I fill one cardboard box each year. At the end of the year I seal it, store it, and burn the oldest cardboard box and its contents which is typically three years old at that point.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Everyone else has already covered everything I can think of, but this is my current 'method':
* Everything older than about 6 years is contained within a few box files. All held together, just ordered by when it was received. The oldest papers would be 15 years old.
* Since then everything is sorted into a few (er, 12?) small "piles" - some in boxes, some in folders, some piled on shelves. I know where something should be and can usually guess at the depth.
* As time goes on, I gradually makes new piles which are more organised but never go back through old documents to re-sort them. I definitely receive more paper per year as time goes on, but thankfully e-invoicing is starting to take a bite out of that.
* Unfortunately I hoard papers so these piles will grow in number forever, though I have half a plan to burn piles once they get to 10 years old.
* I scan stuff that is really important or that I might need at any time (I'm not always at home, but I nearly do always have Internet).
* Generally, I very rarely need to look at a paper copy of something. If it means something, the information has already been extracted into GnuCash, Jira, Confluence (highly, *highly* recommended even just for home use) or a text file.
I have a grueling sorting process. I throw them all in a stack somewhere near the spot I opened them. A few weeks later, I throw out what I don't need and leave the rest there. A few more weeks and I'll throw them in a shoebox or similar storage container.
Then, when I move I skim the contents of the boxes. Sometimes I toss the box, sometimes I combine the boxes.
I have lever-arch files in which I keep copies of all utility bills for one year (appropriately sub-divided into water, gas, electricity, phone, internet etc). After a year, they get shredded.
Receipts (for large/expensive things like TVs, computers) go into a file and are not shredded until the warranty period is up.
Very important documents such as insurance and legal papers and mortgage documents are filed permanently but are also scanned to PDF and backed up offline along with the rest of my data backups, in case my house goes up in flames.
I give them to my gf. Whenever I need a document, I ask her to retrieve it. What happens in between, I don't know;]
0x or or snor perron?!
I just scan everything. And I mean everything.
The Fujitsu S1500M is a great piece of kit, but pretty expensive. But it can scan and OCR big folders in a manner of minutes. And the software does not suck, which is much more than can be said about the software that usually comes with flatbed scanners. I just hope it could remove the staples as well.
All those scans are just dumped in one big folder. Then Spotlight makes it a breeze to find something. Anectodal evidence shows that it works on Windows too.
I still keep the original paper version, in one big paper folder. Once a year I review the content, throw away the outdated files and move the rest to long-term storage.
Now, if a provider offers an electronic delivery option, I usually pick that instead, if the provider is reliable.
Nobox: Only simple products.
I just scan really important stuff in google docs right away on a flatbed, it sucks. if it's kind of important I just put it in a folder and wait for the day where I see a fancy office copier somewhere and scan it into my email address (for the past year it's a stack of papers the size of a magazine).
Then everything goes into google docs with a tag so I can find it. If it's not worth going to all that trouble it's probably not worth holding onto at all.
Except for stuff I need to keep for taxes (which are filed in a folder named "Income Tax"), I run everything through an easy-to-use, one-way-encryption device I got at WalMart. Once the bag containing the encrypted paper gets full, it goes to the recycling center.
Seriously though, I used to keep filing cabinets full of this stuff and finally realized that I never, ever needed something that I couldn't get another copy from the source. Big trip to the recycling center and life is simpler.
I married a woman with OCD. The constant cleaning can get irritating, but I never have to file.
If I die unexpectedly, my wife will be able to (a) easily see the new documents coming in, and (b) easily see the old documents that I have on file. I use hanging folders, with each business' documents going back in time five years.
I've switched to electronic documents because my wife would have no idea what to do with them if I were to prematurely shuffle off this mortal coil. Because it wouldn't be my problem anymore, and anyway, she's free to help out with the bills and documents at any time. I'm sort of kidding, maybe.
I am not a crackpot.
I wrote my own electronic filing system software, that OCRs, and analyzes documents using text classification and date extraction, does full text search, etc. Here is the link: http://freshmeat.net/projects/paperless-office
I use a file cabinet, and destroy shit based on age.
I keep around various bills longer than necessary, just in case I want documentation on where I've resided.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Also find a chick with a business type degree and marry her, especially an Asian chick. Then you will never have to worry about that shit again.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I just have a folder for each 2 month period and throw everything in there, regardless of what it is. If it's an important document, I'll also scan it using an application I wrote that will store the electronic copy into a filesystem folder based on category, and name it with a brief description and an encoded date. So then I just use "find" to retrieve the electronic copy, and I can get the original hardcopy by searching through the appropriate physical folder based on the timestamp.
I use a product we wrote - built in scanning / printer driver / drag drop files/etc et al - for capture - where all materials are stored in a self contained file that can be locked (incl compression and encryption).
www.docwheel.com
I keep a stack of maintenance records for my car, because I will probably sell it some day, and the future owner may want that. But I will never actually refer to any of these, even if there is a question about the state of my car. I will just have it re-evaluated at that time.
I don't get any financial statements in the mail, because the institutions store them as pdfs for me. I trust them to keep accurate records. Every day I throw out practically everything that arrives in my mailbox. Occasionally I will get a personal correspondence or an actually-informative message from a financial institution.
I don't keep the records of my interactions with the government (parking tickets, licences, etc). It just doesn't seem worth the effort compared to the potential risk of some misunderstanding occurring.
I don't keep medical bills or documents, because I trust my doctors to keep an accurate medical record. And even if they fail to do so, I don't see a strong reason to care about that.
I don't keep correspondences with my children's school, because I can't imagine a reason that I would ever need to refer to that. I read them, respond as appropriate, then they go straight into the trash.
I keep documents regarding real estate ownership, but in the ~10 years of doing so, I have never referred to any of these.
So I have a couple of unsorted write-only streams of files for certain things, but everything else is either digital or thrown away. I can imagine scenarios where magically having a certain document might make things easier or simpler for me, but none of these scenarios have ever occurred to me or anyone I know. Nor do I imagine that is worth the 1-2 hours per week it would take to maintain something like that. I would rather spend that time with my kids or my friends focusing on the present.
Is this unusual?
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
Keep it simple, and don't make your organization any more complicated than it needs to be.
I'm a little paranoid, so my method is probably more complicated than it needs to be, but it's still pretty simple. If it's paperwork that I don't foresee actually needing ever again, I shred it. If I think there's any chance I might need it, I throw it into a manilla folder and put it into a filing cabinet. The organization is pretty free-form, just thorough enough that I know I can find a document if I need to.
If a document is important, I also scan it and put it into an encrypted disk image that uses the same folder names as my paper file. I then back up this encrypted image online.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p552.pdf
I picked up a brochure from Neatco.com, a company who sells receipt/bill/document scanners with OCR software to pull out important info. I have read mixed reviews on the web...is anybody here using this? Or any other document control OCR software?
Step 6 is 3-7 years depending on whether the IRS is lazy or suspects you of fraud, but Step 2 if however long you hold the asset before you sell it. If it's a more complicated investment, there may be other steps involved - for instance, the company merges with another, or spins off another company, or splits their stock, or does something else weird, so now you the stock you own isn't identical to what you bought.
If you own a house, you need to keep even more records. There's the purchase of the house, and anything related to the purchasing process (real estate commissions, lawyers, everything about the mortgage), any expenses you have that increase the basis of the house (a new garage counts, painting the inside might not), and then when you sell the house, usually you're buying another one and rolling over the capital gain into it (unless it was a loss.) You probably only need to keep documentation on a single house for 7 years after you file your taxes after you sell it (maybe up to 9 if it took you the whole 2 years to buy the next house), since the tax return from rolling over the cost documents your basis.
Usually the rule is to keep purchase records 7 years after you sell something.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Your system is my system, writing paid on things works great. I put all bills in gallon zip lock bags for a given month, and reuse the bags after 3 years.
I put one of those two-drawer metal file thingies with hanging folders in the bedroom closet. It has about 30 folders in it (such as warranty papers, electricity bill, credit card invoices, health insurance) and I file documents as soon as I'm done with them. Most of those I'll never need to see again, but if and when when I do, I enjoy not having to rummage through an unsorted box. Plus, it takes just a few seconds to file a document and it's actually kind of enjoyable.
Anything really important (ownership documents, job contracts) is scanned + distributed to all my machines with Git, and a physical copy is kept in a small folder dedicated to that theme (one for each insurance, each bank, warranties, diplomas, etc.). Less important documents are just scanned (or retrieved electronically, when possible) and the physical copy discarded. A well organized digital library is great when you don't want to shuffle through a huge stack all the time.
If a physical document has value, I save it AND more than one electronic copy. A few pounds of documents are less trouble to keep than to reacquire if they are gone.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sounds like commenters have a lot of hardcopy storage space! Having moved between eight student rooms in four countries over the past decade alone, I minimize my physical burden by running everything that comes in through a scanner with automated document feeder into 600dpi b/w pdf, simply stored behind date-ordered folders and filenames. I keep many redundant copies (online backup storage, SD card, two external HDs, and once a year a computer on the other continent). Things important enough to keep in hardcopy simply go into large envelopes ordered by subject, but I rarely need to look at them because I keep those in softcopy too. When I leave a country I can usually throw most of the hardcopies out.
One I use for important recurring services and the other I use for every-day purchases and on-line commerce. That way if a fraudulent charge occurs on the second card I can just close it out without having to call people up on the phone to move the recurring charges (which is a hassle).
Always a good plan. However, may I suggest a layer of indirection? Controlled Payment Numbers, such as Bank of America's ShopSafe, provide a way to generate "throwaway" credit card numbers linked to your primary cc account on their backend (much like a pointer). As a bonus, they have a user-selectable fixed credit limit (or fixed monthly recurring limit), and each one can only be used for additional charges at the original merchant that charged that number.
The biggest win was when my primary cc account was changed due to a massive data breach at an "undisclosed third party". I had setup all my recurring charges to use individual ShopSafe numbers. They updated the "pointers" on the backend and even though I got a new cc number, all the recurring charges to the ShopSafe numbers kept going through without a hitch. No hassle.
I laugh at the specter of data breaches and attempted fraud. Have fun charging that stolen card number given that it was already exhausted because I set the spending limit == my transaction's value, and wouldn't work if you attempted to use it anywhere else but the original merchant anyway. This prevents sneaky merchant upcharges, too.
I have one next to my desktop and everything important I dump there.
For the important ones I scan them and keep them as .pdf files, stored in directories under the vendor, activity, etc. , subdirectories sometimes by date often helps for things that go on periodically (ie taxes2010, taxes2011, etc). I forget the non-important stuff, since its not worth my time. That works for me and keeps it relatively simple, though not always foolproof. I shred the rest as it just tends to accumulate otherwise.
However, for some things, original are important (signed contracts, certifications, etc.), so I save these. Also, a dual system sometimes helps, when you can't keep up, but generally try to avoid it unless its important to do so. Obviously, backup is important, just like not setting fire to your house. Clearly, whats important depends on to whom and for what purpose and why, which varies from document to document as well as from individual to individual.
Right now, the solution working the best for me is keeping one small file cabinet (2 drawers) with colored and labeled folders in it, where I keep anything I think I want the original paperwork for. (That includes a folder labeled "Advertising" where I stuff the latest coupons and sale flyers from the newspaper or mailbox. Every so often, I try to weed through that one and throw all the expired offers into the recycling can.) Other items I keep in there include random pieces of my kid's artwork or writing projects I think are worth saving, and instruction manuals that came with items I purchased. (If you've already got a paper copy they supplied, why throw it away just to potentially need to re-print a scanned copy of it later on?)
For everything else like receipts or monthly utility bills, I scan them in with a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and use the Mariner Paperless software on my Mac as the document management system with it. This arrangement works pretty well, because the Paperless software lets you drag and drop in any PDF files you get in email as statements, instruction manuals, or whatever else, and they appear in the collection just like anything you scanned in from paper. The ScanSnap is capable of duplex scanning and auto selects an appropriate DPI resolution for each document you scan, based on its size. Other than the fact it's not the best at always feeding smaller receipt tape size paperwork through it on the first attempt, it's a really good arrangement.
The IRS says digitized copies of your receipts and supporting documentation is good enough for them, in the case of a tax audit -- so there are really very few cases where you have to keep an original paper document. A few of those exceptions include my vehicle titles and birth certificate -- documents best kept in a fireproof safe or bank safe deposit box anyway.
I have a single 2 inch folder without any partitions per year. All bills, warranties, receipts go into that roughly in the order they arrive (or get paid) by date. I put all financial transactions into Quicken - that provides a date stamp for any payment.
Before you over complicate things, think a little:
a) how often do you need that old receipt?
b) how much trouble is a more complex filing system?
c) when you do need an old receipt and know it was dated June 2010, finding the 2010 folder is trivial. Pulling all the items filed out and looking for a date on each will get you close in about 5 seconds. Flipping through 10 pages to find the exact receipt is easy. You probably know what your gas, water, telephone bills look like. You also know what credit card receipts look like.
I don't do electronic anything, but if I did, it would be stored by YYYY/MM/ to make annual document cleanup trivial after 7 years.
Don't over complicate this stuff folks. Stop wasting time "filing." KISS works.
I file copies of bills/statements for up to three years, tax returns for up to five(make so little no real point), and I keep them in a floor bolted safe. I love the fact it has money/passport/SS card drawers up to, and a file folder tray on the bottom.
Sometimes I burn bills/statements sooner, and that's if the space runs low. My system is new things in front so it's easy to trim the last 12.
Store receipts vary wildly. Once something is out of warranty, is not needed for insurance, or was groceries/gas that I just verified on the statement I burn them.
Poppycock. I live in London and some of my bills, like EDF, are impossible to get electronically.
Vodafone sends me paper.
I've made my HSBC bank accounts mostly electronic, but they send me quarterly papers for my ISA investments.
I personally use Pendaflex 5394 legal-size hanging tri-way folders. Basically, it has a folded paperboard divider attached that divides it into three expandable sections.
I use one folder per 'genre', with sections for "this year", "last year" and "anytime else".
My genres can basically be divided into two categories: "dead" and "useful", with two or more sub-categories per genre. The folders are all the same color (green), but the labels are color-coded.
"Dead" are things I'm filing because my parents told me I should, but I'm unlikely to ever look at or care about again. Bills in general fall into this category. I used to have one folder, but recently split the category into two: things specifically related to credit cards, and everything else (mainly because credit cards were accounting for 2/3 the volume, and everything else was getting lost in the clutter)
"Useful" things are papers I might actually need to look at again over the next year or so. Things related to insurance, tax-preparation, etc. Right now, I have 4 such folders: tax-preparation, house/car/insurance, cats (one of my cats has asthma) and "everything else".
Elsewhere, I have hanging folders with the same genre names for each past year. Sometime around January 1, I move everything from the "last year" section into its own folder in the big filing cabinet, move everything from the "this year" section to the "last year" section, and might dig through the "some other time" section if I'm feeling like it.
Why this works for me:
My old filing method can loosely be described as two boxes: "stuff" and "old stuff", I'd open bills, deal with them, and throw them in the "stuff to file" box... where they'd stay forever. Every couple of years, the "stuff to file" box would get full. I'd start digging through it planning to weed out everything but the latest stuff, then get bored halfway through and just throw it all in the "really old stuff" box. About 10 years after college, I had about 5 such bankers' boxes full of stuff that was technically supposed to be filed, organized roughly by year. It worked surprisingly well, but once I bought a house and started getting torrents of papers that had to be filed, I accumulated almost an entire box of papers in less than a year (previously, it took 2-3 years to get to that point). Worse, I was starting to spend lots of time digging through the boxes. So, I came up with a better idea.
Plan B entailed having two boxes for "current" stuff -- one for things I knew I'd probably never look at again, and one for things I thought I might need again. This strategy worked surprisingly well for a year, but became unwieldy early in year 2 because I THEN had to deal with five banker's boxes of papers: this year's dead and useful papers, last year's dead and useful papers, and a box to throw everything else into (because I knew, deep down, that I would never, ever file them properly, and the alternative was a pile on my desk that would sit forever). So, I spent some time thinking of ways to distill its essence and still keep my filing minimal and manageable, but a little more portable than five boxes that were all mostly empty.
That was how I came up with my current system. Everything still gets filed by "this year", "last year", or "anytime", but I now have a place to explicitly put things that previously fell through the cracks... things that were kind of "timeless" go in "anytime" as well. The "anytime" category actually ended up being useful in another way. Even though it means I technically have to look in two places to find something I think might be related to a specific year, it also means that the few papers I really, truly DID need to access again tend to stay in the main filing area (where I can get at them easily).
The biggest problem I had was switching to legal-size folders. Why legal-size? Because 99% of the bills I get are legal size. I can barely even remember the last time I got a bill that was small enough to fit in a letter-sized folder without having to
I've been using all electronic bill pay for almost a decade, so I get close to no physical bills. Some companies require me to log into their website to see the electronic bill on a webpage or PDF, whereas others send a copy to my bank (Wells Fargo in the USA), which lets me pay electronically to anyone in the world. I use these services for all my utilities, mortgage, etc. These companies usually keep about 2 years' worth of records, and of course you are always free to save the PDF or print a webpage bill to PDF. The only physical mail I get now are magazines and junk mail advertising.
The Shredder.
I can't imagine why i would keep most of that at all, but thie method for such things that works for me is a 12-month accordion file. Just keep reusing it. When you come to a month that has papers already, throw most of it away, shredding the sensitive stuff. If there's something you feel you need to keep either start a file folder for it elsewhere or leave it in the accordion pocket ntil next year to reevaluate.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
I have noticed, on several occasions, that the wonderful PDF stored by my financial institutions, does not print properly. It it goes to the second page, some of the data falls into the gutter. I have had numbers cut in half and, on the checking statement, a transaction completely lost. So it is paper, stored and then shredded. I even shred the envelopes!
Oh, and I ever want to start withdrawing from your IRA, you need the first page of every 1040 form for every year you made a contribution. Forget 7 years.
Most dumbfounded I've ever been after reading any thread on Slashdot in at least a decade. There are paper filing cabinets galore, and even PaperPort has its merit, so who with any technical ability would muck with files when every filing cabinet you own, hundreds if you have them, can be on your desktop and every drawer icon a different color for selection by mouse and re-creating in printed form from where you sit??? Tell me about just *one* modern hospital that doesn't store, organize and re-create medical records just like that?
Underutilization of this technology has been one of my largest battlements. Now that I see even Slashdot isn't more into it, I think something more than technophobia is going on here. I'm really scratching my head but I can't see what it is.
The one profession that CAN NOT do without this software is Attorney. Pretty good for CPAs too. Doctors have eClinicalWorks. *What is the excuse* for being so far behind the curve, Slashdot?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Um BAFFLEMENTS? Sorry.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
A big drawer and the simple principle that the older something is the further down it is.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
What are these paper documents you speak of?
I scan to pdfs and then shred the originals. Most of my bank and credit card statements I get electronically so all I need to do is file those. I bought a sheet feed scanner for convenience (If I buy another it'll be a dual sided scanner so I can do front and back in one pass) and use Vuescan (www.hammrick.com) for input. Some things must be originals so I keep those in a safe deposit box. I don't bother with OCR as it is to time intensive; I do have a system way to name files so it is easy to search for them if needed. If I find I need one relatively frequently I add tags as well.
On a day to day basis I use iXepenseit on my iphone - it allows me to categorize all my expenses and take photos of receipts. Not only is that handy for expense accounts (it exports the photos to a pdf file) as well as .xls files; I create categories such as Home Depot / Sears / Best Buy so I have a copy of my receipt for warranty purposes. I just export reports for each major category and save them. A a bonus all my receipt photos are backed up in iTunes as well.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
When you sell a stock you need to have some kind of receipt showing the cost of stock purchase, so this is something that needs to be kept around. I have some stocks that I purchased >10 years ago, and I have printed receipts somewhere, just in case of an audit. With Etrade they deleted online transactions after a few years, but now there's an SEC rule that they need to keep the cost basis for purchases and other transactions.
I have made and saved *a lot* of money for the trouble of saving paper records: being organized has quite simply made me money.
I've been able to get timely warranty replacement service. I have been able to increase my tax returns by submitting amended tax forms years later. I've taken advantage of offers that actually do save me money, and can easily comparison shop when I get sick of any given company's bullshit. I've been able to track my spending and activity, and modify it to be more efficient. I have actually bothered to mail in rebates. Most recently I was able to document the dozens of automated, after-hours phone calls (in violation of federal regulations) I received from SallieMae over the years. Having the paperwork handy meant that I was able to claim several hundred dollars from the multi-million class settlement, rather than the default $25 amount.
I keep two manilla folders handy: one for current tax documents (not including receipts), and the other for most current statements for all other accounts. I archive everything in the current accounts folder when it gets too full -- once or twice a year, tops. Accounts statements are stacked together, with the most recent statement placed on top. When they're archived, they go into file folders for each account; these are expanded as necessary. All federal tax information is sorted by year filed. I've moved a few times, so all state tax information is sorted by state and year. All residential leases and related housing documentation (notices, bills, etc) are filed by residence.
I also *always* get receipts. I stack these in my wallet the same way I do the mail records: the most recent receipt goes on top. Whenever I have a receipt transaction, I have my wallet out anyway. When this gets too bulky (about every two months) I place the receipts in an accordion file folder. It's easy to separate them by month, since they're already in chronological order. Hardware documentation is tricky; these things are variously-sized and simply screw up manilla folders. I keep manuals and warranties in one single plastic accordion file folder. Driver disks go into a large CD wallet. I once noted that a large video store (Le Video in San Francisco's Sunset District, a block down from the Craigslist offices) kept its entire DVD collection in a series of ~7 CD wallets, so I think this will be enough space for me.
This system is chronological, sorted by account, and takes very little time and space. No external metadata or additional processing is required, though I have at times sent entire accounts through scanners with document feeders, ran OCR on them, and uploaded the entire file to a google docs account. I bother to open my mail once a month at most; more frequently I do so quarterly. It takes me a few minutes at the outside to move items from the current folder to the archives. I have a decade's worth of bank statements, student loan statements, phone, utility, tax, 3 degrees' worth of academic records from 4 separate institutions, membership organizations, and receipts for almost every purchase I have ever made. (I do discard warranties and manuals at the same time I discard the hardware.)
This comprehensive chronological paper record takes up a mere two file boxes, and the accordion files with the receipts takes up another 1'x2' box. At this rate, if I keep every record and live until I'm 80, it will take up one entire four-shelf file cabinet. It has made me painfully aware of the vast extent to which my life is being tracked and documented, but it has helped me adjust to take the greatest personal advantage of the current state of affairs as possible.
A few possible reasons the Slashdot crowd isn't more "digital":
The only positive for digital docs is that you don't have to shred them at some point, which takes a little time (make sure to not skimp and get a good shredder).
The only positive for digital docs is that you don't have to shred them at some point, which takes a little time.
But you should probably encrypt them and/or digitally shred them when you're done. That also takes a little time.
I assume the issuing company has a recallable record of the transaction. I record the particulars on all my transactions in a MySQl database program accessible by PHP both locally on my computers and on my domain with an Internet provider. It is not all that complicated once set up and All I have to do is fill in the form to enter a payment or purchase. That way I can create a MySQL query to analyse my transactions any way I want to. They are double backed up both on the ISP and locally on my machines. Note: I am just an hourly employee at a call center. My individual account records are back up with UbuntuONE.
WAllen68104@yahoo.com
I have as much sent electronically as possible. I don't have a legal need to provide proof, so I don't keep the extra paper.
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
So the guy with "TechForensics" for his username is convincing you to use a technical solution for all your paperwork. Somebody feeling a little bit of job insecurity here? ;)
Scanning and storing seems to be adding unneeded effort to your life. The only payoff seems to be that it is now electronic. Otherwise, BFD. Sometimes, upgrading the tech does not equate to upgrading your quality of life.
...." or something similar. I also like knowing that the only security risk comes from whoever sent me the bill/invoice/statement/whatever. Most things can be burned after a few years. Actually, most things should be burned after a few years. If the record has no use to you but could possibly be used against you, then why keep it?
OK, you scan and store store stuff. Storing it takes about the same effort as filing the original. A year's worth of household/personal records is about 8 inches of file storage for me - and my records are fairly complicated. Those plastic file storage bins hold a foot and a half or so of records. Easy solution. After a few years they make a nice fire.
I like having hard copies around. I like knowing I have a piece of paper that I can hold up and say "You sent this to me
Also, as a lawyer, I do dearly love electronic discovery because I can use all sorts of cool search tools to go spelunking through someone's/some company's past. On the other hand, there's no way that I want to make it easy for someone else to do that to me.
I do try to store medical records, legal records, and some account info forever. As in fireproof safe or safety deposit box. Those records benefit -me-. Everything else gets burned. Actually, shredded then burned. Shredded stuff burns so nicely.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
Swamp boy raises an important point that corporations would be wise to accommodate in intellectual property management - both corporate papers and personal papers, it would seem, would best be kept track of electronically. In the 1940s there was a science called " Indexology " that disappeared with the rise of computers. I researched this science to find a way to best index my papers, bills etc. - I found little useful research.
Corporations should have methods to help employees organize papers, perhaps integrated with the indexing of electronic media.
....in a couple of different filing cabinets. Everything broken out by type (gas, home insurance, car insurance, etc.). Works pretty well.
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I used to be one of those folks that had a hanging folder for each category, electric bill, gas bill, phone bill. etc. It dawned on me that a rarely had to find one of those documents so I simplified my system. It has worked well for me, but your mileage may vary.
I get a plastic box found at various stores called a sweater box. It's a convenient size roughly 9X12X6 Inches. On January 1 of each year, I place receipts, bills that are paid and other documents that I want to save in it, not organized other than chronologically. If I need to retrieve an original document, I know that the oldest ones are on the bottom and the most recent are on the top. On December 31, I write the year on the end of the plastic box with a sharpie and put it away in the closet for at least 3 years before shredding the contents and recycling the box for new use. It's just not that hard.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I leave them in piles on my desk until either I, or my wife (usually her), becomes annoyed enough to stick them in the file drawer (neatly organized). We keep all bills on a 2 year cycle and all tax forms (and related documents) on a 7 year cycle. Everything outside of the 2/7 year range that has any identifying information (names, addresses, phone numbers, SS#'s, etc) on it is shredded.
Please don't humanize the morons around me. It makes me very uncomfortable.
i scan all mail to pdf files on my macbook as soon as I receive it, then whenever i have time i review the files and categorize them. works great mainly because i have an awesome scanner: epson workforce pro gt-s50 (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Product.do?sku=B11B194011). seriously, i absolutely love the thing: led based so no lamp warm-up time, scans both sides at once, 75 page feeder never jams, mac image capture converts and saves each batch as a separate pdf. only minus is price: got mine for $300 from b&h... but it has to be the best money i ever spent. i am now down to a single folder of documents that i can't really throw out (school diplomas, transcripts, etc) and hope to keep it this way.
I mean this as a real, geeky question, not as a joke. rsync would go faster without tarring, because it could examine file mtimes and sizes rather than having to compare chunks of a tar file to see what chunks are new or changed. As your tar file grows, rsync slows.
You may want to check out rdiff-backup for local, unencrypted backups, and duplicity for local or remote encrypted ones. Duplicity even supports S3.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Because they're the least important part of my life and not worth saving? I'm guessing SwampBoy has other, bigger issues.
Throw 'em in a paper shopping bag with the year date written on it. After 7 years shred and toss into recycle bin. Best system in the world.
People don't generally have enough paperwork to take up more than one draw, therefore, storing electronic documents is too time consuming to bother with. for hospitals and attorneys, paperwork can take up rooms, and hiring someone to scan it is cheaper than buying a larger premises, but we don't have that problem. it takes up to a minute for each document to scan, and it could more easily be put into a box, and that way there is no risk of a hard drive crash destroying it. We are "behind the curve" of big businesses just as much as we are behind for using a grocery list and not MYOB to plan grocery spending, when for hospitals, keeping track of expenditure electronically is essential.
Here in Denmark we have the option to get most official papers regarding payment (income and bills) electronically. At this point I get, at most, 2-3 letters in my mailbox a month. Most of those are trivial and quickly find their new home in the rubbish bin. I also read all my news online, so I've opted out of getting the free newspapers and adds, which makes my life easier, since I don't have to take the garbage out as much as I used to :D
There are paper filing cabinets galore, and even PaperPort has its merit, so who with any technical ability would muck with files
Well, my filing bin is mainly filled with manuals and warranties. I think they make them a bitch to scan on purpose. Anyway, it takes two seconds after buying a product to throw the stuff in there, but a minute to scan and tag a document. I also use the shoe-box of old bills method discussed above for the same reason. And of course certificates of ownership, birth certificates, etc all need to be stored in hard copy (though scanning a copy is nifty) so I already need to make room for soft copies of things.
Basically, for many people's lives, it is easier to deal with papers.
I'm amazed that so many slashdotters (who are probably pretty tech savvy) receive (and keep!) so much stuff on paper. The only papers I keep are signed documents and receipts for somewhat expensive things I've bought. All bills are delivered electronically to my online bank (I live in Sweden), and with a "No junk mail please" note on my mailbox the only mail I get is interesting/important letters and directly addressed junk mail. Bills from companies I haven't registered for electronic billing with (new contracts or one-time business) I just trow in the paper recycling bin. My only problem is papers with more or less sensitive personal information on them, for now I just keep them in a box, but I'm planning on getting a small shredder so that I can throw them in the recycling bin as well.
Martin
I'll give a reason not to do all that scanning: Time. The OP is just asking about household bills and stuff. The first bill I get every month is my utility bill. When I open that envelope, I label it with month and year, and then all the other bills and receipts go into (big-ticket receipts go into a permanent file with the user's manuals; sometimes those get scanned). At the end of the month it goes into the back of the filing cabinet. At the end of the year, I shred the envelopes from two years before while I'm doing some other work at my desk. This process takes less time than scanning and only about six inches of space in the back of my filing cabinet. Sure I could scan them. But I don't generally need these. Maybe once a year do I have to dig around in the pile; Quicken puts me in the ball park, and then I riff through an envelope or two. I realized a long time ago that it's easy to fetishize computers and get into overkill, let the tool become an end rather than a means.
Since recently I have adopted a following "policy" at home:
- "incoming" documents (bills etc) get payed (by scheduling the payment online with due date minus 1-2 working days) ;) ). I have bought a cheap flat-bed scanner for this that does the job perfectly. Once scanned, I put a little sign on the paper document indicating that it has been scanned. :)
- then they get into the "queue" of the documents to be filed
- I scan each document I intend to keep (and the decision is simple: hard drive space is cheap so I scan anything except the spam
- I store each document in an appropriate directory on my NAS at home
- I am trying to use a tagging/searching tool for better results, trying different tools now to find the best one
- once scanned, I file the paper documents to a small cabinet or a folder on the shelf
- since I have adapted this "policy" only recently, I still have a bunch of documents that are not scanned. I am going to slowly process this backlog from oldest to most recent, destroying the old documents (like bills older than one year, for example) after scanning them
- I am going to do regular backups (to DVD or BD) of the document archive. I am not very concerned about the possibility of losing the last 1-2 months of data since I am guaranteed to have these documents in their original paper form
My general idea is to reduce the amount of paper documents I keep and, most importantly, to simplify searching for that last bill from the school or for that statement from the broker. And to make sure everyone in my family can find them too.
Underutilization of this technology has been one of my largest battlements. Now that I see even Slashdot isn't more into it, I think something more than technophobia is going on here. I'm really scratching my head but I can't see what it is
For me, in three words: too much effort. I tried for a while to go the scan route or find some optimized system, but in the end, what saved me enormous amounts of time and effort was just going with a filing cabinet with labeled (I go with categories myself) folders. I get a bill or document or whatever in the mail, I take the appropriate action (if any) and if it looks remotely like I might need it in the future, I dump it in a file. Takes all of 5 seconds and keeps my house free of stacks of paper. 60 seconds if I need to create a new category (but using my labeler is fun...). Once a year, maybe less if the file cabinet gets too full, I take an hour or two to go through the folders and shred documents that are either too old or have become redundant. All at the cost of a small filing cabinet and a stack of folders. Oh and the labeler.
Scanning and electronically filing them (proper categories, file names whatever), takes a LOT more time for each document. As for getting all my documents electronically in the first place? I already cant stand the amounts of logins and passwords I must remember for all the banking, insurance, phone company etc etc etc sites out there.
Yeah, if my house burned down I'd have lost all my documents. Well, its a small risk and quite frankly, if my family survived, losing all the documents wouldn't kill me. I'd be more worried about having lost my 5 year old's favorite stuffed animal. That'd be a real tragedy.
Sometimes the low tech solution really is the most cost or time efficient solution, took me some time to realize that.
I have a 400 square foot apartment. I have a accordion folder for the year with major headings and receipts. Then I have a file box way up in the closet that the accordion gets transfered too.
Yes I could use digital, but it's just easier this way then manning a scanner.
This is what I do, and it's worked well for me. For not really important stuff (i.e. hardcopies of cable bills that I've already paid online), I just toss them. I don't see a need to retain copies of that sort of document. For other stuff such as bank and CC statements and all the other stuff the OP mentioned, I scan them and e-mail them to myself. I just use my regular g-mail account, but you could just as easily set up a new gmail account for this purpose. When I e-mail the docs, I use the subject line to tag them (i.e. april 2011 bank statement). Gmail provides fast and searchable access to the docs from just about anywhere. I also have that gmail account configured for POP access in Outlook and every couple months, I fire up Outlook to download all the mail from the account and store it in a local PST file as a backup in case Gmail ever goes away or is inaccessible. The biggest thing I've found is that it's absolutely worth spending a bit more on a quality scanner with a good ADF that allows you to quickly save documents directly to PDF. Any scanner will work, but you want something that requires the least amount of time and effort. If it takes a lot of time to scan and e-mail everything, then you won't stick with it.
I have been scanning and shredding paper documents since the 1990's, much of it using Paperport. The older versions used a pdf-type image format called 'max', the current version uses pdf. A small fujitsu scanner that does both sides at once and writes pdfs directly has been a great help - will take a stack of pages although feeding is sometimes tricky. This all goes into a structured directory tree that gets replicated across multiple hosts. Like paper records, finding things later and keeping the clutter under control is an ongoing maintenance issue. Indexing has been less useful that I might have thought -- the directory tree is the real workhorse. I have also tried sharepoint but its just different, not really better. The built-in indexing is supposed to be a benefit but I am too lazy to want to hack the code requried to make it work. Nice part is that it can all get burned to a dvd -- and the 2tb external drive I use for replicating my folders and backups is pretty portable. All I can say is that this approach works well for personal and small business files and is a lot more portable and accessible than file cabinets or boxes.
I've recently implemented a digitizing scheme: All paper documents I receive are scanned. The scanner is set to store the images in a default location on my server, and a cron job periodically OCRs new images in this location. The OCR text is stored in a database, and the whole collection is made searchable through a browser interface, which provides a link back to the scanned images in its result page.
The OCR process is not perfect, and does not handle handwriting, but with a few tweaks the process is reliable enough that printed text is OCR'd with pretty high accuracy. At least it's good enough so I am usually able to find the documents I'm looking for using a few well-chosen keyword.
All this was done using open source software: Python, CherryPy, jQuery, Tesseract (OCR), Sphinx (Search), tied together with some bash scripts.
Works like a charm.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
The problem with scanning important documents is you need a good a backup system. RAID alone is not really a backup solution, ideally you want your documents stored securely in at least 2 geographically distinct locations. I've been using a hosted system called My Efact Paperless Office ( http://www.myefact.com/ ) -- they provide the scan software and host your documents securely, and every 3 months they send you a set of encrypted DVDs containing all of your scanned files. For me, paying their fee is well worth it because I don't have time to maintain my own organizational system, handle my own backups, or maintain a server -- and I know that just keeping scanned files in a folder on my desktop PC is not reliable enough. I've also used a number of different scanners -- in my business I work with a lot of 100 page batches that include different sizes and colors of paper; the more affordable scanners I have tried do not handle the different page sizes and colors well without a lot of manual tweaking on each batch -- then I finally got a $1000 Panasonic KV-S2026C and the difference is amazing. Now I can throw a mixed-size, mixed-color batch on top and scan it through and the brightness and contrast and page size get set automatically for each page.
My solution was to write a script that would scan a document, OCR it and store the OCR'd text as a comment in the image header. This way I could do text searches on the documents and then open up the image for a high resolution scanned copy for printing if needed.
This actually works pretty well, even if the OCR is not 100% correct, it's usually correct enough to come up on the search when I ask for it, and I have all the text anyway. As OCR technology improves I can re-OCR the scans and store new comments.
I have scanned hundreds of documents this way, and I'm hoping I will get rid of all the paper currently sitting round in a mess. It's a semi automated process, but once I did the bulk of the text, new documents that come in are done quite quickly. It would take about a minute of my time (perhaps more if I have to flip pages) to actually do this. So I'm happy, and will hopefully refine the process in future :)
Oh, and this all uses open source software, so another plus for me (and others who care about it).
PaperPort has helped me tremendously. Even the early free version (they came with scanners) that only allowed one level of folders was better than nothing. Now I use the latest professional verion (12) and it saves directly to PDFs, lets you edit them, rearrange pages, etc. and send them by email. Pay stubs and other items that are already in PDF can be saved directly to the folders. I haven't used the search feature, as most docs are not tagged, but with a document feeder, scanning is just another part of the bill paying process.
I am too paranoid that I might need something so I probably keep more than I should.
I do a fairly low-tech approach:
- Shred all bills that are not accounts (gas, phone, etc.)
- Keep all records that are accounts or income (credit cards, savings, mutual funds, checking, pay stubs).
- I keep selected receipts for big purchases, and other tax-deductible things (mostly medical expenses)
- Put all paper in a big pile after the accounts are reconciled (I use quicken). Ignore pile as it grows.
- At the end of the year, put the big pile of paper on a table, and sort them in to little piles by account. Sort each stack by date, but this will happen most automatically since you are sticking the most recent stuff on top during the year, and you reverse it when exploding out the big pile. I wind up with 20 or so stacks of paper.
- Put all the stacks into ONE folder, marked with the year name.
- Next year, you stick your taxes in that folder.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Any documents that come in are filed in 4-5 trays depending on whether its personal or professional mail. After a while the trays get filed into maps.
Important documents are scanned.
The scansnap i use is a breeze: very quick, doublesided, feeder scans. The pdfs end up in an action folder which triggers an OCR conversion on the pdf, and that is then automatically indexed by Mac OS X.
If it's a really important doc, i will go through the trouble of moving the doc from the scan folder to a hierarchical folder structure, but due to spotlight I tend to do this less and less. So basically the scanning process is a one button effort.
This setup works perfectly for me since years (and i have a *lot* of documents to manage).
Hm, two things occur to me.
1. If you have the right sheetfed scanner like a Visioneer Strobe, you just take the document, slide it into a slot behind your keyboard, and it's scanned and filed in a general folder in 20 seconds. I guess it would be a P.I.T.A. to try to use some scanners with lots of software steps to get started on their (fairly slow) scan runs. Yep, I guess if I had to use one of these, I wouldn't be so keen on electronic filing, either. So having the right scanner that effectively becomes a transparent portal onto your desktop seems essential. Later anytime you can drag from the general folder to specific folders. The Fujitsu ScanSnap series of scanners look very good, although the Strobes from Visioneer with their Twain drivers are more versatile, and used to be the easiest to use.
2. Even if scanning takes a bit longer than throwing in a drawer, isn't it WORTH the time a) not to have to take up room in your study or office for a cabinet, b) not to have to hop up 40 times while doing your filing, and c) never having to make copies (just scroll them out of your printer)? Maybe I'm atypical because I was a lawyer for 25 years before switching over to tech, and the value of having my case and client files organized, at my finger tips, and SEARCHABLE was extreme. Even now, for instance, when doing tasks like filling out financial aid forms for my son's college, it is SO EASY to click a mouse and find ALL of our tax data (without getting up), ALL of his transcripts, resumes, and award letters, etc., that I can't imagine having to go looking for paper. And how do you search a filing cabinet? PaperPort 9.0 (the last one that was good) does OCR on all scanned docs and boy is it a boon to find things by word search as in Google.
It is a damned shame that PaperPort, which was a fine product (and still is if you buy Version 9 rather than the current Version 12, which frankly sucks) got Bowdlerized, savaged and vandalized by the current owners (Nuance? which acquired ScanSoft). The product has become a real POS but lucky you can still get Version 9. I wish Nuance would make this product good again (but they aren't capable) or take pity on Userland and spin it off to someone who knows what it can be. It could be an affordable and virtually-as-good Lucion alternative. What a crime that a truly great, superior, even classic program can be trashed by fools and turned into stinkware. Nuance, SHAME ON YOU. Personally I run Win98 in a virtual machine just to use version 9 with the Win98 Visioneer Strobe drivers that make life as easy as sliding all your stuff into the scanslot. Really.
I absolutely know this is going to be an area of huge opportunity. Whoever can wrest PaperPort out of the clutches of Nuance has the potential to become, if not another Adobe, then at least the owner of a product as widely used and useful as Acrobat.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Using the guidelines from this document.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
for garbage, or I guess R for recycling if you are an ecoHippie, although recycling paper is a bigger threat to the environment. Excessive amount of carbon emissions produced to process recycled paper compared to creating new paper. Also with an increased demand for paper increases then number of trees planted which helps scrub more carbon dioxide out of the air. New paper = MORE TREES, LESS NET CARBON EMISSIONS, recycled paper = MORE ENERGY AND MORE CARBON EMISSIONS. Stupid ecoHippies.
Ok, what brand is this? The only cartridges I've ever seen that cheap are really old ones from before MFPs.
Lexmark. I have a Pro901, but the cartridge says it works in the Pro905, Pro805, and Pro709 as well. "Lowest black ink cost" was the most prominent advertised feature of the printer, actually.
Do keep in mind that I'm talking about black, not color... but then again, color laser cost per page, especially for relatively inexpensive home-office-class laser printers, isn't that great either.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Too bad. I refuse to buy Lexmark printers.
They refused to honor a rebate many years ago for me because I "didn't send in the UPC" even though I sent the only bar code on the box to them and found nothing else that said proof of purchase or UPC on the box. They used to have hideously overpriced cartridges. They (at least used to) not support Linux. They put in anti-refill electronics in their cartridges to prevent end users from refilling them. And they used the DMCA to try to prevent third parties from defeating their sabotaging of the cartridges. Right now I'm only buying HP, Brother, or Epson. Though I am seriously considering buying a Panasonic laser MFP.
You assume digitization is better but paper records require no "OS" or any other software, you don't need electricity to read them and they'll outlast any digital archival format.
I believe there is some value to that
If you scoop them into boxes every few months or so, you can stack those up in the garage. It's safer if there's a fire because you're less likely to get trapped. Also I remember in the Northridge Earthquake, some guy got killed by his falling boxes. Safety first!
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
Hanging folders with labels . Works fine.
Categories:
1. tax related (mortgage interest stmt, W2, 1099-xxx, 401k annual statements, property tax, charity contribution receipts)
2. Insurance papers (I tend to save all versions of their fine prints - call me paranoid)
3. Auto service papers (useful when selling the vehicle)
4. IRA contribution and distribution statements (there are strict IRS rules on the limits and I am expected to keep track)
5. Medical reports (Lab reports, doctor reports, medical imaging - can be further sub categorized)
6. House papers (mortgage, title, home insurance etc)
7. Employment papers, benefits program details, fine prints, recent paystubs
8. Immigration papers (they pile up rather fast, but need them for decades)
Even if I were to store these in electronic format, I would prefer the same directory structure.
I do not store statements for credit cards, bank accounts, utilities, cable, phone etc - no value gained in storing them.
I don't have everything stored electronically because it is simply easier (and in my mind safer) for me to receive the paper bill and store it by hand. From my perspective, it is just a matter of separation of concerns (failed harddrives, misplaced/accidentally deleted files, obtaining a copy of the official bill shouldn't be a problem if i have a physical copy that I always put in the same place every month)... Also, even if I wanted to subject myself to the possibility of losing my records and being at the mercy of the regular companies who bill me to deliver accurate information in the case of a court case, I am way too lazy to scan bills and buy a shredder. It is all just too much of a hassle for something that really is so simple.. it is just a piece of paper in a shoebox, and that is what it should be. I shouldn't have to worry about having enough ink in my printer, having a printer, having paper, having it be a "legally acceptable copy", having a corrupted version of the file/losing the file due to a failed HD or OS crash, requesting a copy from the company, hoping what they sent me is accurate, waiting for the request to be completed, etc, etc ,etc... Why complicate the unbelievably simple process by putting it on your desktop? I also don't think it is a matter of underutilization, it just two things: KISS and our society of mistrust, which is the reason i do things the way I do.
I should also mention I prefer to never pay my monthly bills electronically, I do everything with stamp and written check.. I find that writing a check for a bill helps promote a healthy skepticism about the charges I am paid for, instead of automatic payment which I feel leads to mindless consumerism (just trust the system, my brother tells me).
I should probably also mention I don't backup any of my 3 harddrives, mostly because I feel like if I have sensitive data on any of them that I don't want to lose, I have bigger problems than not regularily backing up. I do burn files to dvd and cd on occasion (system files, various documents, local SVN repo), but full backups of drives seems like a huge waste of time when you are talking about a device that is essentially an entertainment device.
- docs.google.com, for team/co-editing
- doctape.com, for fast access + archiving (not open-beta, yet)
- dropbox.com, for everything thats very huge or somehow relies on the filesystem