JDPFu.com 2025

Normal Paper documents

Filing Steps

1. Get an accordion file with 1 pocket. I use a different file for each year.
2. File paper docs, bills into it in the order they are received. Statements, receipts are kept in the order-of-arrival. That is close enough. Consumable cash receipts are trashed – never filled.
3. Bills + receipts for non-trivial items are entered into Quicken (or your tool of choice). That’s the chief organizing database. There’s a date for every record.

As an example, I can search Quicken for a HDD purchased last year, find the date for the record. With that date, an approximate location in the accordion file is known. Find the right month, now it is a matter of finding the right receipt which takes 30 seconds. Simple, effective and we didn’t waste very much time organizing our files. Even if you bought something important every day, that is just 40-ish pieces of paper to flip through in a month.

The types of documents stored in this set are for things you’ll want to return, have warranty service for, or for tax purposes. That implies a 7 year retention. In year 8, shred them all. How many insurance policies from 3+ yrs ago do you really need? My insurance companies send new policy documents every 6 months or year.

Long Term Paper Documents

These are to be retained over 7 years. Things like home appliance manuals/receipts, roof shingle receipts, and other manuals. I’m a little lazy about these and simply throw them all into a bottom drawer. That’s receipts, warranty documents and manuals.
Retirement documents probably need to be retained until retirement – basically, forever.

Electronic documents

I don’t use electronic documents myself, but have worked in electronic document management off and on professionally since 1993. Again, the date of a document is critical. Don’t trust file timestamps stored on the filesystem. Always store all files by year, YYYY/, ALWAYS. Adding a month subdirectory, MM/, could make sense for some people. Again, store files by the closing date or the received. That is close enough, except at the end of a year where you need to be cautious to store in the correct year. When you need to locate these documents, take advantage of the computer’s full-text-search, never trust “document properties” since those fields are seldom correct. Sure, you could fix the document properties yourself, but that defeats the keep it simple and easy method.

Don’t forget that these are really important documents for the 7 year retention planned. Backup, backup, and backup again. That means at least 3 different copies are needed on 3 different physical devices with one of them at least 250 miles away.

It is usually not worth the effort to create folder for different types of bills or receipts – the yyyy/mm/ should be enough granularity unless you are running a business.

Why Store by Year?

When it is time to destroy a document, we need to be certain it is safe to do so. Most financial documents need to be retained 7 yrs, except retirement documents. That makes it easy to wipe/trash a complete year of data. Your local county or city may have paper recycle days where you can drop off your stacks of old data to be shredded right there with thousands of others as you watch.

Password Manager

Don’t forget to use your password manager to store really critical account numbers, software license keys, passports, and scans of important document, uh and passwords – all encrypted. Backup, backup, backup.

What am I missing in my filing system.

We don’t want to spend all our time filing after all. This stuff is supposed to make us more efficient. Please don’t waste any more time filing than is absolutely necessary.