In between trying to get rid of ants in the kitchen and the refrigerator needing monitoring to stay in the small temperature range we need to get it to stay in, I had some time in our office to catchup on paperwork a bit - still 2 piles, but the “to do” one is getting shorter.
One job I have not have had a chance to do is store files from 2018 that I need/want to keep. Before doing this I have to clear out the oldest box saved files - in this case it was 2009 that had to be dealt with. 2009 was an unusual year for us - it was the year that we had bedbugs.
I climbed up and took stuff off the front of the shelf in the office closet - 3 boxes of computer disks stored up there (installed hardware, to set up the computers, old software that might needed, past years tax software). At the end of 2018 I stored the paid bills in an old manila envelope box (the one the envelopes came in) that I keep for this - that box had to come down also, as were 2 boxes of small manila envelopes. (Did you know that 6"x 9" or less sized envelopes go at the same US Postage rate as regular #10 envelopes and can hold more in the same 1/4" thickness allowed for same than the #10's?) Some empty, flattened boxes that I kept was the last of what was blocking access to the 3 boxes of old financial records on the middle of the top shelf of the closet. There are additional boxes of same (9 in total) on the top of the closet, but the latest and oldest are the two I try to keep in the center stack - as the other stacks require moving the center stack to take out the boxes. First, I took out the 2017 box and added some papers I had found during the past year from same (I have folder “old years files to add to box” that it has been in. ). I then took out the 2009 box.
Going through the old box is a trip down memory lane. I start taking out papers. There are bank statements, paid bills, old insurance policies, etc. in the box for us and for our businesses. I have my paper shredder ready and also have spare garbage bags.
I take the first item out - what is it? In this case a stack of telephone bills. Nothing needed from same. I go pull the first 4 off the top - checking that nothing else is mixed in - and into the shredder they go. Little by little more goes into the shredder. Items such as the phone bills and cable bills which don’t need to be checked if anything should be kept just get fed in and shredded.
In 2009 we got rid of my 1996 car and bought a new one. (Which we hated and got rid of 2 years later.) I pulled out the book (remember when the dealer handed out books with photos and info about the car that you were looking out) and the rest of the papers from the original 1996 purchase of the car that I pulled from the car’s file at the end of 2009 when I pulled files to keep from the year.) I stuck all of them in the book to go through and added same to my “to do” pile. I will keep the car registrations as I keep them forever. (We once received notice that we had not paid 3 parking tickets on one of our cars. We had never received any tickets nor was it in an area we have been to. I requested copies of the tickets and it was a different car and a different license plate. Some of the letters and numbers matched and some did not - but looked the same. I had to prove what the license plate on the car was - at the time the ticket was issued - having a different plate on the car when I was fighting this did not count. I did not keep the registrations - in this area this is a small square of heavy paper that is changed every 2 years when it is renewed. Each was tossed out after the new one was put in the car or our wallets. It was a big problem to resolve, so I now keep the car registrations - forever. I will go through the purchase papers when I get a chance.
I then looked up in my Quickbooks what income taxes we paid during the year (including final estimate and final payment for 2008 and estimate for 2009.) I saw that we had only made one payment in April. I made a note. I then checked what we had paid for our real estate taxes and made a note of them. I then opened our corporation in same and checked what and when we had paid for corporation taxes and sales taxes that we had collected and paid. I also checked for a certain payment we have to pay to the state corporation dept every other year with who is who in our corporation.
I then started with the corporation bank statements. I pulled out the statements that should have the checks issued above and pulled those checks out, paper clipped them together and safely set them aside. I will scan front and back of these checks in my computer - again due to something that has happened in the past with clients - and my dad’s business. I then started shredding the corporation bank statements, looking as I did for an unusually large amounts on them. If I had seen any I would checked what it was for.
Next I went through the corporation’s charge card statement. Again I looked for anything that is a large amount and feed the statements into the shredder.
By now I have had to change the bag in the shredder once.
I now am at our personal bank statements, again I will check for any large amounts. A lot more of these than for the corporation as we have accounts at multiple banks and each have IRA accounts. Our main checking account has a lot of checks, as well as deposit slips, so I remove the staple(s) holding them to the statement so I can feed them into the shredder in batch sizes that will not jam the shredder and also send the statement through. As I go through I make sure to pull the checks for our income tax and the four for our real estate taxes. When I come to July I find the check that paid for the bed bug treatment - gee, it was $2000 more than I thought I was!
When the bank statements are finished I go through the several credit cards statements. (All of which were paid in full every month, as is all.) Again, I have to separate the slips from the statements as there are too many to go through the shredder all at once.
Suddenly I realize that I am coming to the end of what is in the box. I have pulled some papers and set them aside to check through - maybe scan into the computer, as I will do with the tax payment checks and receipts for our real estate taxes. Last thing was I took the “2009" removable label from the box.
2009 is done and gone. I have done it in 3 sessions of shredding - too much shredded at once and the shredder will overheat and I will have to wait for it to cool off. I filled 4 kitchen sized bags of shreds. (I put them in out by putting 2 bags each into a larger black bag and setting those two large black bags out. The light colored kitchen bags can sort of be seen through and I did not want anyone noticing that the bags had shredded papers in them and it looks more like regular trash than same.)
On to storing 2018. In my file drawer the files that should be gone through have red edged labels (those that are permanent and should stay are blue edged). In our corporation’s file drawer the annual files are yellow edged labels and permanent are green edged labels. I have a folder in our file drawer that holds items I found or received during the year that belongs in the prior year. So I take anything in it - for 2017 and add it to the 2017 box.
I pull the first annual folder - bank statements from our main bank - I take out 2018 statements and put into the box. I do the same with the rest of the bank statements from 2018. I then come to statements from our medical insurance - all of the 2018 statements are pulled out. I switched medical insurance companies in 2018. I go through the blue edged folder for same and pull the papers to keep - I shred the others. 2 empty folders (the annual and the permanent for that insurance company) to be recycled next time I need a folder - put in a sorter on top of the folder holder stack on the side of my desk with other folders waiting a new use. I do this with all of the annual folders in our file drawer.
I then do the same with the corporation file drawer. Paid bills for the corporation are in folders in the file drawer and are pulled out also and fit into the box.
I then go back and pull the box of paid bills which I mentioned I had put the 2018 bills in. I then add the paid bills.
When I am pretty sure that just about everything is in the box I take out my “this year folder”. I use this folder to throw things in that I don’t know what to do with or do not go with anything and need to be held for short term. I go through it and shred whatever is no longer needed. I put in the box anything I want to keep from last year. One example of what is in this folder - we get a large postcard (sometimes two during the same year) on when and where we are to vote - including our Congressional district, State Senate district, State Assembly district, and County legislator district on it, as well as our “voting district” infos. I keep the card until we receive the next year’s card. Since we have the 2019 card, I shredded the 2018 card as it is no longer needed. (I keep it until the new one comes as 3 years ago we did not get the new card. While the card is not needed to vote, it helps when the idiots, ummm, the people working at the polls cannot figure out that we belong at the table that we say we belong at. (No, really, one year the woman at the table we were to vote at told us we were at the wrong polling place as our address was “not on her list”. We had to show her the card with the info we were to vote there and she had to go and check with one. Not sure if that is better or worse than the year we went to the primary vote and the man and woman at the table for our location and our party were not able to figure out anything to do and the fellow from the other party came and took care of getting us signed in and gave us our ballots. If one did not have to be there at 6 am we would go down and work the polls because they need us - and one does get paid.)
When I was pretty sure all of what had to be kept from 2018 was in the box - I put the lid on and climbed up and put it away. I then put back all the stuff that goes in front of the boxes that I had taken out. Anything I find now that belongs in the box, I will put in that prior year’s folder for next year.
Something I just noticed in writing this piece - I never made a new label “2018" and stuck it on the box. I will have to do so or be terribly confused in the future.
I also have a file drawer both for the files I keep for our reenacting unit and for same for my embroidery chapter. (I am treasurer of both and need to keep files). I have a metal file drawer divider so the embroidery files are in front of same and the reenacting ones are behind.
I have not had a chance to go through these files in awhile and move out old years. I started with our reenacting unit. I pulled old paid bills from the paid bills folder, ditto the bank statements and insurance policies. We have some copies of invoices that I sent to organizations that we did events for and they are pulled also if they are 2017 or before. I then sorted what I had pulled out into stacks by year and put the stacks in folders. The unit has several filing cabinets and a drawer in one of them holds the old records - more than 3 years ago - and I move the files there - by year - so I don’t have to take up room in our house for older files. As I pull the older bills I check to make sure that there are not any that I might needs - items we don’t often need to reorder, but if we do, it is helpful to have the last one, so that we know what we ordered last time and from whom. (This past Monday night these files were taken to our reenactment unit’s meeting and put in the file cabinets.)
I did not get to the embroidery chapter’s files yet - those I keep 3 years in the drawer (plus the current year) plus another 7 years in box (another of those manila envelope boxes) in the closet - well labeled.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes just short periods of time are best for getting work done. I could have put all this off, but had a bit of time here and there to shred the papers. I pulled most of the papers to go in the box for 2018 while the computer was backing up for the day.
Getting rid of ants and getting the fridge to stay in temperature range - much harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment