Tell me about your home filing system...........

We've gone paperless with bank statements and BT phone bills. I keep mobile bills for a year and have everything ever from insurance companies and council tax, etc.. We have a three drawer filing cabinet and two of those are filled with household paperwork.

Sorry, ours is the kitchen cupboard and a dividing folder.

I tend to keep bills for the year or things like tv licence until the new one arrives and shred the old one otherwise I get really bogged down.

As a parent you will probably know that the Tax Credits people are the worst because they tend to send you things in duplicate, it puts me off contacting them for anything. Their paper bill must be astronomical.

The first time I've ever been glad we don't qualify ?.

My husband is the problem. I swear he throws NOTHING away. I'm going to have a session with a shredder tomorrow!

I have two of those lockable concertina files. One has the current bits in it, house insurance, car insurance, current bills etc. I'm paperless on most of the monthly bills now as well as bank statements, but those that arent I keep for a year and as the new bill comes out I shred the same month last year. Thats shoved under my bed

The other file has all my house purchase info in it, will information, bank statements from old accounts, bits that I don't really need to look at, but keep, just in case. This one is at the very back of my wardrobe as I never need it, which begs the question, why don't I go through it and clear it out?

I have an A-Z expandable folder and a drawer in the kitchen. Anything over 6months old gets binned, except Inland Revenue stuff which I keep for 6years. Most of our bills are online now, so we really don't get that much paperwork.

Mine is just 3 ring binders and a box style filing thing. I keep stuff generally for a year. Mainly because i had a clear out a few months ago and found my very first ever wage slip from my job (i've been here 10 years). I don't have a shredder so my dad took the stuff to work to shred for me and it took him most of the day to shred my stuff.

I use a series of lever arch files, and we have loads. Each child has one; one for pre-schools and nanny; one for utility bills; one for insurances; one for "permanent" info (includes our professional association stuff; gym memberships; car documents; vet / cat stuff etc); one for bank statements; one for other finance items (just me); one for house stuff (mortgage and all conveyancing info, plus any work we have done); one for appliance booklets and guarantees/warranties. Ummm, I think that may be it.

I don't have a hard and fast rule about how long we keep things, but we have clear outs when the files get too big - some goes to archive, and some gets shredded. I try to keep a year's worth of bills on file - don't know why exactly.

I thought everyone qualified. hmmm

So if most people keep a year's worth (Other than IR, payslips etc), J can't moan if I shred everything older than 3 yrs?

I wouldn't have thought so, unless he needs them for work/tax purposes. H and I are both employed, I can't see why anyone would want ours so I shred them yearly. Bank statements are a different matter, I seem to hoard those.

We have gone paperless for all our bills and it has made a world of difference. Now the vast majority of our paperwork is filed neatly on my laptop.

Thanks all.

Right, I'm going to buy a load of lever arch files and dividers and spend tomorrow morning sorting and organising. For now I'll archive older stuff in a box - just in case J objects - but I'll get the shedder out soon!