Organizing the Files

Once a year you should be going through your file folder (I sure hope you have one). So of course I went through mine and have decided to show you my process. 

We use just a regular file folder right now, nothing cute because we needed something cheap that works. We got this one from Staples. It is pretty standard.

While the file folder works, over a year, documents will build up that don't need to be there anymore. In other words, we don't need them at all anymore. This is what it looked like before I tackled it.

This file folder has all the tabs I feel are necessary for the basics. If you have your own business and such, you will want to get a separate one. 

As I go through it, I make sure to staple any documents that are together that are not well... together. This makes sure that if you ever need to pull them out, you aren't searching through all the documents in case one got lost.

Brandyn and I are with the same bank but we do not have a joint account (which is a personal decision I will talk about in another post). Because of this, I put the name on the outside of each of our folders that has our banking information in it. This just takes a step out of finding the information we need. Instead of taking out both folders and opening to see which bank account it is, we just see on the outside.

When it comes to paycheck stubs, after the taxes are done for that year, they are shredded. I take the T4s and staple them to the tax form for that year and file it under taxes. For the paystubs and anything needed for taxes for the current year, I paperclip them together (I do not staple because you will constantly be adding paystubs to this) and then I file under employment. Here shown is a T4 from when Brandyn quit his job after we moved. I find it comical that under the reason, they put "following spouse." 

While I am sorting through, I am also laying them out by category and in the order that they will be put in the file folder. Right now, my work space is my bed :)

Here are three piles that will not go back into the file folder. The right is Brandyn's school work, the middle is an instruction manual and that will go into my manuals binder and then the right is all things needing to be shredded. I highly suggest shredding because identity thiefs sift through your trash.

As you can see Brandyn's school work that he needs to keep is a pretty big pile. I needed somewhere to put them but I didn't want a bulky binder taking up space on my bookshelf. 

I found this at staples and basically it had dividers on the inside but I easily just pulled them out and placed the paper in. I needed two for this big pile. You could use a binder if you wanted but I am lacking space and I could easily store this in a box in the closet with my file folder.

 Here it is all cleaned up! Much better and there is no clutter or papers we don't need anymore. For the record, I do not keep credit card statements or bills after they are paid. All that stuff is easily accessible online.