Three Days Worth of Filing

 This whole parent hospice process has me triggered.  Already I cannot watch the hoarders show without being prompted to clean a closet, a drawer, or the entire house.  So, of course, with closing the parents house has me cleaning out every drawer, closet, cupboard, and now my filing cabinet.  

I hate filing, a lot.  I have a really nice oak filing cabinet with wheels that lives in Monica's Closet.  I also have one huge filing drawer in my desk.  I am not without options. That is not a reason to not file. I'm fairly organized so it's not like there's piles and I'm just overwhelmed, I just hate it.  

Now let's sprinkle in that we sold two vehicles so that's a bunch of paperwork gone.  Add that everything bill-wise is paperless.  So what's piled up, if you will, is receipts, paystubs, tax stuff.  I realized that I did our last two years taxes on the fly and didn't have hard copies of the taxes and a mishmash of receipts, forms and check stubs.  I've since rectified that because my gawd, that's horrifying.

When I organized my father-in-law's bills, I bought an organizer from the shamamazon so it was just in one place that could be closed and have room for other stuff.  Then, because he is functionally illiterate (dropped out of school in the fourth grade and went to work.  DRIVING HAY TRUCK)  I had to think about how to label the organizer so it made sense to him.

I made labels but not your standard "Electricity/Cable/Phone" labels but the logo's of the companies where he has bills: the bank, the co-op, doctors, insurance.  I laminated those onto the organizer with packing tape and tah dah.

Sidenote: I googled for Senior bill organizer and had little luck.  Mostly, the difference was the print was slightly larger on the labels.  Sigh.

Okay, so back to this project.  I had to break it down into many pieces because otherwise, I was just going to light a match and walk away.  

Speaking of burning things, we also bought a document firesafe.  After discovering that our parents had one and we did not, we bought one quickly. Because: duh. I was actually embarrassed that I hadn't done this sooner. First order was to find our legal documents, insurance and stuff to put into said document safe.  This emptied quite a bit out of the cabinet.

Second order was to cull through the files. This had been done recently so this wasn't such a big deal but like I said, we sold two vehicles and replaced one, we had bought furniture and house stuff, and just the general effluvia that happens when you're a grown-up with bills and responsibilities.

Luckily, recently we had a delivery that came in a big box.  I put it in the office, sat on the floor and played the What is This - and it's sibling: Keep or Toss - games.  I am surprised to report there was A LOT of paper going into the Toss category.  But again, the last two years have been a lot so I guess I should have not been surprised.

This took a couple tries because the alphabet brain declared the task "boring and stupid" a few times.  Kevin had to work on Saturday and I slept in a little bit.  I woke up not quite ready to begin my day but awake enough to feel like I should be doing something.  I grabbed our medical file and the dog file, took them back to bed and went through them while watching Leap Year.  100% recommend.

What I realized during this chore/responsibility/whatever was that instead of doing the files and hanging folders as I have been for millennia, I could do the same thing that I did for my f-i-l.  I returned to shamamazon and ordered two more folders. The theory is one folder could be for stuff we need to get to easily or often and one for stuff that we're keeping because we have to.

In the midst of this, I googled: what documents need to be kept forever and how long does income taxes have to be kept? 

I was surprised at how LITTLE TIME stuff has to be kept.  Taxes: 

Well, I have all of our taxes and even the taxes from before there was an "us".  I just can't...let go.  To be fair, to me, I discovered that the parents also have kept all of their tax records.  So, I'm not alone.

The rest of the advice is a little inconsistent.  Most bills are paperless now and the advice varies.  Paystubs, if you get a paper one is one year; toss after your taxes are filed.   These are mostly paperless now though too but Kevin likes have a paper copy. Mine are online.

So, what did I keep?  Health Records that are pertinent or part of our health history, vet records for Lucy when she had cancer, house stuff, retirement/taxes, manuals and warranties that frankly could be tossed because everything is on the interwebs now.  And, if I were realistic, all of this could also be scanned into the interwebs or on USB.  It's rare that a hard copy of any of these items are necessary.

AND after all of that...it turns out that one organizer is probably enough.  Of course.  It's okay though because I'm certain I will change this system at least once. 

Now I have a filing cabinet that I only need one drawer and the big drawer in my desk could be empty. (it has the long abandoned photography wall project stuff in it right now)  Also, I had bought a plastic set of three drawers to help keep the parents documents separate from ours plus the rest of her photos, and now I am not needing it either.  I guess Too Much Storage is better than not.

All in all, it's taken about three days just to get this far and I'm still not satisfied.  I am just going to walk away from it and mull over my options.  Again.

The biggest win is less paper.  Oh, and a document safe.  I suppose also: just the over-all organization.

Next step is to put it all together, for reals and to recycle all the old folders and paper.  Then it's the annual Monica's Closet Excavation.