Filing cabinet. What about it?
Filing cabinets are useful to store important papers. I dislike filing cabinets because most of the time papers get added but rarely are papers taken out. If a file cabinet is full and doesn’t go through a regular purging stage, then papers waiting to be filed get piled up and don’t get put away.
Studies have shown that only 20% of the papers added in a file cabinet are looked at again. What about the 80% of the papers that are filed? That’s a lot of papers to store and never look at again. Ask yourself if you’re looking to thin out your filing cabinet, what are you saving 80% of the papers for? With the technology constantly changing and improving, many of the “important” papers are readily available online such as financial statements, cable/internet and electricity bills, often going back seven years. Alternatively, scanning existing papers will help to unclutter. Setting up digital files can help. Tame the paper clutter. I can help.
Important note: I strongly encourage you check with your CPA or investment advisors on which papers needs to be kept and for how long.