Document Management 101 - Organizing Your Documents

Ever wonder where to start as you stare across the room at the stacks of paper that continue to grow at home. Have you ever considered throwing out all those totes of papers but weren't sure what to keep and what to chuck? This blog is being written to provide you with some guidelines as you tackle all those piles of paper.


Documents to keep permanently:

• Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates
• Divorce, Citizenship, Adoption and Custody documents
• Social Security Cards
• Military Documents
• Medical History
• Appraisals (i.e. on jewelry, artwork, and other collectibles)
• Real estate documents and corresponding insurance policies and claim info 
• Tax Returns
• Wills and Advanced Directives (Power of Attorney, Living Will)

Determining how long to keep other documents:

• Once your year-end financial statements come in, you can chuck your monthly statements
• Utility bills need not be kept for more than 6 months; anything older than that can be accessed online
• I keep my credit card statements for 6 months in case I have to dispute anything or have a problem with merchandise purchased with a credit card. Generally, items purchased with a credit card are covered for replacement under certain conditions.

Travel Documents:

• When traveling internationally, email your documents to yourself before leaving for your trip. Be sure to send them to an email address that you can access from any computer. Include scanned copies of your passport, airline tickets, drivers license and if applicable, your visa.

As you work through your documents, be sure that you shred any documents that you plan to discard that have personal information on them (i.e. credit card statements older than six months, any documents with your social security number on them, etc.).