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Going Paperless

I have a filing cabinet beside my desk at home.  As I get statements in the mail, I usually lay the entire envelope (sometimes without even opening them) on the top of the computer until it makes a stack that’s a few inches tall and I get tired of looking at it.  At this point, I’ll take the time to file them in folders by bank name or other issuer.  I really don’t like this method of storing the statements since the folders get bulky and I run out of room in the cabinet.  Not to mention if you ever need to find a specific month, you have to go digging through them.

So my new method is to go paperless.  Alot of banks and credit cards have up to 24 months worth of statements that can be downloaded in .PDFs online.  For the statements beyond the 24 months, and for those accounts that don’t offer such a feature, I’m taking my actual paper copies and scanning them as .PDFs.  I’m taking the time to name the files so that if you sort a folder’s content by name, they’ll appear in sequence, and grouped together by issuer.  For example, Shane_BB&T_2008_12_31.pdf.  The folder setup is going to be something like ‘Statements’ with subfolders of ‘Bank Statements,’ ‘Credit Card Statements,’ & ‘Retirement Account Statements.’

I really don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I think I’m going to like it alot better than having all of the papers to deal with.