What Documents Should I Shred and What Should I Keep? by LifeHacker ~ High Tech House Calls

Monday, April 21, 2014

What Documents Should I Shred and What Should I Keep? by LifeHacker

6:19 PM High Tech House Calls, Expert Computer Consulting

Dear Lifehacker,
I have a giant pile of important looking documents sitting in front of me, and I have no idea what to do with them. Some of them look pointless, but could be important. Which ones should I hold on to, and which ones should I shred?

Sincerely,
What's this Garbage

Blast from the past is a weekly feature at Lifehacker in which we revive old, but still relevant, posts for your reading and hacking pleasure. Now that tax day has come and gone, we figured it was time for a good refresher on what to shred and what to keep.

Dear WG,
We all get a ton of junk in the mail—whether it's credit card applications, insurance packets, or a 60-page retirement fund report from a job you had 10 years ago. Thankfully, deciding what to keep is simple, and once you do you can shred pretty much everything else.
The Important Documents You Need to Keep

What Documents Should I Shred and What Should I Keep?
Depending what type of documents you're dealing with, you need to store some of them for certain periods of time, others you can digitize, and others you can throw away. Let's start with the documents you need to keep physical copies of forever:

Birth and death certificates
Social security cards
Pension plan documents
ID cards and passports
Marriage license
Business license
Any insurance policy (good to keep even if they have a digital copy in case problems come up)
Wills, living wills, and powers of attorney
Vehicle titles and loan documents
House deeds and mortgage documents

In general, you want to keep physical copies of anything related to state or federal matters, including certifications, licenses, or deeds. The reason is twofold: you want to have easy access to these in case you need them, and they're also a pain to replace because you typically need to make a direct request to the government agency, which takes a lot of time.

If you're unsure what to do with these important documents, we recommend keeping an "in case of emergency kit" so you always know where they are. You can also use a webapp like Get Your Sh*t Together to gather everything you need to keep for the long term.

The second subset of documents to hold onto relates to documents you need to keep for a little while. With these, you can follow our guide to going paperless and scan them in if you like, or just store these documents in a safe place:

Tax records and receipts (keep for seven years)
Pay stubs and bank statements (keep for a year)
Home purchase, sale, or improvement documents (keep for at least six years after you sell)
Medical records and bills (keep at least a year after payment in case of disputes)
Warranty documents and receipts (keep as long as you own them)

Finally, the last subset is the documents you need to keep the most recent version of:

Social security statements
Annual insurance policy statements
Retirement plan statements (401(k), 529, IRA, etc)

That's pretty much it. Once you know what to keep, organize them in a filing cabinet and you're all set. A good rule of thumb to think about when you're deciding what to keep is to think about how hard that document is to replace. If you need to venture down to a government office, wait in line at a hospital, or sit on the phone for an hour, then it's likely best to hold onto it. If you can easily pop online and see a document, then you likely don't need to keep a physical copy.

Shred Everything Else

Everything else you have you can safely shred or throw away. You should shred anything that has personal information like your name, address, phone number, social security number, or bank account information.

This might include a few documents you don't initially think about, including ATM receipts, credit card receipts, bills, and even used airline tickets. You should also immediately shred expired credit cards, visas, passports, and IDs. The best way to shred documents is with a good cross cut shredder like this one.

Happy shredding,
Lifehacker

Why not sign up for my newsletter? We will never sell or sell your email address. Unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter.