Organizing Your Files

Here is a quick post about how we organize our filing system...

So I failed at taking a photo of the before, because I just wanted to get this done, but I'll show you what I was working with. (Now take in mind, I was pretty organized before I "re-organized" my files, but before that, my filing cabinet was a disaster!)

As you can see, I already had colored file folders, tabs, and labels. I just needed to update some of the file tabs to go along with the bills we had as of now. We refinanced our home recently and I had to update that. We got rid of a vehicle and bought a new one, and had to update that. Riley's childcare changed, so that was another thing I needed to update. You get my drift? :) So here is how I organize our filing cabinet...

First, I bought colored, hanging file folders. I have red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Red is for medical (medical insurance, EOBs, and medical bills). Orange is for personal files (so each of us have our own file where we keep things like old photos, passports, birth certificates, shot records, etc). Yellow is all of our retirement accounts (my 401K, Tyler's NEAP). Green is all about our finances (our taxes by year, our account statements, CDs, etc). Blue is all of our important bills (like our mortgage, car insurance, utilities, and childcare). No I do not keep all of our billing statements... that's just too much paperwork to keep. But we always have a record of how it was paid and when, with our bills binder finance checklist - check out this post for more about that - so if I need to go back and look how it was paid, I can. Then I can either get a copy of the cleared check from our bank or print out a bank statement, as proof of payment. Last but not least, purple is all of our college & student loan information. I kept every single promissory note for each student loan we have. I've also kept all of our important documents from the colleges we attended. I even have a spot for my FAFSA. That stuff is important to keep since it's such a huge chunk of change to repay! 

Next, I set what I already had in the correct piles and started going through the huge box of papers I needed to file - from over a year ago - ahhh! 

So everything was sorted out, and old papers were set in a pile to be shredded (see that huge stack on the right?... that's the shred pile). I only keep 10 years of tax returns, and 1 year of bill statements. I do not have check stubs from our employers either since they upload them online every week (saves on trees and saves me space in our filing cabinet too), but my suggestion would be to keep at least 2 years of paystubs in case you need to reference them for insurance purposes, if you pay union dues, or to keep track of wages for tax returns. Once I finally got all of my piles done, I used a word document I searched for on Google for new tabs, and printed them on cardstock so they were sturdy. And finally, filed them in rainbow order...

It's such a good feeling when you get a task like that finished. I do have more room now since I got rid of that huge stack of paperwork I no longer needed. What a relief!!

My next project is to figure out a way to *remember* to file things right away instead of having that pile build up over time. That is going to be a task. I will keep you updated on that. Let me know if you have any questions regarding this post. There are so many ways to organize a filing cabinet, but this way works best for our family. Post some photos of your filing cabinet below! Until next time.