I’ve written briefly about it before, but I think it’s time to go into detail on how I lead a 95% paperless life.
1. Ask for everything to be changed into an e-bill
Stop the problem at the source.
Every time a statement floats into your mailbox, call or email them to request an e-bill instead.
By doing this, I’ve cut down on 90% of my recurring paper bills (some still come in like bank statements because they won’t or can’t do e-bills by law).
2. Save a PDF format of the bill
If you get an e-bill that is NOT in an Adobe PDF format, you can put it into Microsoft Word, and use the free program CutePDF to convert it into a PDF.
I suggest PDF formats, so you don’t accidentally delete an important part on a modifiable document.
3. Sort your papers
This is a nasty task if you haven’t been organized with neatly labeled folders and files.
Some general categories to start with:
- Government
- Banking/Investing
- University
- Insurance (e.g. Home, Car)
- Bills (e.g. Utilities, Telephone, Cable)
- Receipts/Warranties
- Taxes
4. Separate the items that NEED to stay in hard copy form
- Taxes
- Certificates (Birth, Marriage, Divorce, even Death of loved ones)
- Wills and Testaments
Use your judgement.
5. Buy/Appropriate the following gadgets:
- Scanner (a $50 one will do)
- 2 x USB Key or Hard drive (I recommend Western Digital, Iomega or Seagate, and you won’t need more than 16 GB at the most)
- Shredder (Optional)
URGENT: I strongly recommend buying 2 or 3 USB keys or Hard drives, because once you scan the papers, the hard copy is lost forever once you shred it.
You do NOT want to lose that data.
Instead of buying a shredder, you can use these two cheapo methods I devised when my shredder conked out on me.
D-I-Y Papier-Mache
- Rip all your statements up into shreds
- Fill a kitchen sink with warm to slightly hot water (so your hands won’t freeze)
- Throw the shreds in there
- Let them soak until they’re really “done”
- Ball them up into paper balls, papier-mache style, squeezing out ALL the excess water, really padding it down
- Let them dry overnight on a rack
- Throw them out, or use them to play catch in the yard.
This works beautifully because now the pieces of paper are all mixed up, and they cannot be peeled off, or read without falling apart in your hands.
Let it Burn
Just burn it. Grab a large metal can (or if you’re doing a wood fire grill outside), burn the papers.
No one can read ashes.
6. Set up the folders on your Hard drive
Use the categories from before:
- Government
- Banking/Investing
- Insurance (e.g. Home, Car)
- Bills (e.g. Utilities, Telephone, Cable)
- Receipts/Warranties
- Taxes
7. Come up with a file naming strategy
Often overlooked, naming files properly is a lost art in my opinion.
Do something along the lines of:
MajorName/Category_BriefDescription_Year-Month-Day
Name it backwards from Year to Day, so it sorts chronologically by year, and then by month, then by day.
E.g. #1 Driver’s License papers for renewal of plates October 19th 2009
Drivers-License-Bureau_Renewal-Of-Plates_2009-10-19
E.g. #2 Bank Statement for the month of November, 2009
Bank-Name_Statement_2009-11
8. Start scanning and shredding
The worst part of all, and the most time consuming.
I did about 20-30 lbs of paper (guessing here), in 3 months, scanning half an hour each night for 4 days.
It might take you longer, or it might be super quick. But it sure won’t be fun.
9. Have a drink
Smile at your super light load of papers, have a celebratory glass of wine (or huge piece of cake in my case) and keep up on it.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
While I’m far from being completely paperless, I have been working on it. Any bills that have the option are electronic.
I keep many documents on my usb stick, not only saving paper but it’s also really handy between work and home.
I hope you also keep a second backup, Tom! 🙂 I once had my files erased from one backup because it was corrupt for some reason.
Don't burn plastic on the envelops or coated paper. You're just hurting the environment even more by releasing those materials into the air. Other than that great tips!
Office 2007 allows you to save to PDF!
Good tip!
It’s the darn layout that makes me annoyed. I can’t find anything! 🙂
I hear ya! I wasn't too pleased with the new layout when Office 2007 was released. It was like learning software all over again!
I love this feature. It's pretty neat, and a lot of places I send items such as resumes to don't have 2007 yet, so PDF is wonderful!
I too am now starting to store all my bills online… my phone bill is set up that way and so are my credit card statements. I just signed up on Epost to get a bill delivered there so I don't have to deal with the paper statements again. It's great!
I want to stab Office 2007. Or at least, re-arrange it.
I've been paperless as much as I can for 10 years now, one thing that trips me up now is I'll get like a medical bill or a personal card or letter and not get it for 5 or 6 weeks because I never go by the post office LOL. It also makes it highly difficult if you dont get any mail addressed to you, only Box Holder, for some government things. Like to get my new motorcycle registered I had to mail myself a letter to prove my address so it could be registered. Same thing with drivers licenses, voter registrations etc. anything that needs proof of residency.
One thing to keep in mind with going digital is security. Backup, Backup, Backup! If you havent suffered a HD failure, lost a computer to a nasty virus, dropped and broken a laptop, or fried a motherboard or powersupply from a power surge, eventually its going to happen and if you arent prepared its devastating.
You shred your statements to keep them out of the wrong hands, but its very easy to get a trojan or backdoor on your computer without you even noticing opening up all of your files to who knows around the world. Keep up to date with your virus and spyware protection. Don't think that not visiting questionable sites or opening that spam email is going to keep you safe, again and again huge numbers of people are getting hit through the ads served on regular blogs, forums, or legitimate main brand news sites. The most recent massive attack that happened to nail me as well as infected millions of PCs a month ago came from a hacked Google DoubleClick ad, Google is everywhere! I had to completely re-install, it wouldnt even boot up again and I lost maybe 3000 photos I'd taken since my last backup.
Another thing they teach you in Information Assurance classes from DoE and DHS is information and hardware lifecycle. What happens to equipment that has outlived their usefulness? Disposal is often the overlooked step in the lifecycle, dont just throw out your old computer or hopefully take it to a recycler without getting rid of your data first. For school I've gone to some auctions to pick up some cheap hardware for testing, and once found a perfectly good computer in the dumpster. You'd be surprised at all the personal data we've found on drives before we took the platters out for target practice. Credit card numbers, bank statements, IRA and 401K info, address books, phone numbers, you name it. Luckily these junk computers were used for training and not identity theft and after we tracked down who the previous owners were they got a call from our kind FBI agent instructor who explained how to properly dispose of it next time.
Just because you delete a file doesnt mean its gone folks, bits and pieces are cached all over the place, and deleting a file just removes the label to it. All the data is physically still there until it is over written, you take a giant elecro magnet to the drive, or you physically destroy it. Data is resilient and tough to get rid of. Drill a few holes through your hard disks or better, take them apart for super kitchen magnets and use the platters for wind chimes or some other artsy thing 😉
You make some fabulous points!
I definitely agree with backing up. This is something that sadly, not many people do. I try to back up weekly or when I have to save really big and important documents.
I usually smash my items with a big hammer, even if I feel bad about it. Or I give it to my parents, making sure they KNOW I want them to keep it, and if they want to get rid of it, they have to call me.
Wow, what great ideas you present here!
I especially like your D-I-Y Papier-Mache idea! I suddenly feel compelled to stumble this post :)…
LOL.. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did 🙂 Thank you 😉
I scanned at least 5 binders and a whole (large) filing cabinet worth of paper a few months ago to prepare for a new year of classes. It was a huge job but I am so proud of myself for sticking to it! I backed up my files to 2 external hard drives, just in case something happens to one of them. I have a binder full of paper I couldn't get rid of, like tax stuff. Whenever I get pay stubs or a bill that is not available in e-format, I scan these in and recycle/shred immediately so that nothing piles up.
Good job!! 🙂
Backing up on 2 hard drives is the most admirable of all. I cannot imagine what I’d do if I lost all my files…
I have recently been in the process of converting most of my bills to paperless. I like your tips on getting rid of the paper trail without a shredder!
When in times of need, you do what you have to do to get rid of paper 🙂
I am afraid to go completely paperless. I am paperless for my automatic bills (like my cell phone). In the past, I had a credit card that was paperless and they emailed the statement to my husband, who is lousy at checking emails. There was a strange $2 charge on there for something stupid like eBay fees that I didn't know about and by the time I found it, it was 2 months late. For this reason, I want to keep some of my accounts on paper.
Ah.. but your husband is lousy at checking emails.
That’s where I see is the bottleneck in e-bill paying.
I am pretty careful to check my statements (instead of paying blindly), and I think they even force you to go to the website and look at the statement before you pay it.
They won’t send me the pdf, I have to download it from the site…. which forces me to review the statement. 🙂
I'm completely paperless and have been for several years now. I honestly did it because I am a hoarder and I needed a cure. I don't back up any of my files though, I just leave them in e-mails and can access monthly bills on the website. Should I be downloading my monthly files and saving them to my personal computer?
I generally always keep 2 copies of monthly files, even if they’re e-bills and you can access them any time
Just because
a) you may not have an internet connection all the time
b) you may realize they have an expiration date on their sites and “clear” data after a year, etc
c) keeping a copy of anything is always a good idea
I just started doing this within the past year I didn't realise how much paper we had until I started. I'm so glad I did and thanks for the great post.
Any time! hope it helped.
There's a gadget on the market that scans receipts. Apparently it will even enter the amounts in Quicken automatically. I haven't tried it but have seen it at a Costco.
I saw that! I almost wanted to buy one because I was traveling so much and having a ton of receipts, but then I realized it may not be worth the (then) $300 pricetag.
The file naming tip is great. I often stick the year at the end of the name, but putting in in front makes much more sense! I love purging old papers that I don't need anymore.
My husband has been on a "stop all the junk mail" binge lately. He has been calling the catalogs we receive one by one and getting our name removed. Hopefully this will reduce our junk mail as well.
I’m still on the hunt to stop junk mail. It’s driving me crazy, all these stupid offers.
Here’s a tip if you haven’t done so already — I call them, and say: “I just got a paper for ________. Can you remove me off that mailing list, and any other mailing list you may have in the system?”
Generally speaking they have you signed up for 4-5 at once. Just being removed from ONE from a bank, doesn’t mean the other 4 won’t come in the mail.
Best offense is a good defense 😉
"Use your judgement" . Funny!
I will actually use the papier mache technique as I'm always afraid that someone might read my stuff even if it's torn to bits.
It really works, that papier mache technique. BF marveled at my ability to make do and not buy something 😛
One problem with doing e-bills here in Britain is that they are often needed as identification and proof of address. For example, if I want to open a new bank account, I must provide a photo ID such as a driving license or passport plus a bank statement and a utility bill posted to my address within the past 3 months. No way am I going to let the bank or the water company quit sending me paper bills — I wouldn't have anyway to chase the highest interest accounts! Strange and regrettable system they have here….
Oh that is horrible!!
What a very odd system in Britain. But I suppose it’s to stop identity thieves from stealing your address and re-directing the mail to their own email address so they can sign up for the offers or something.