The Overzealous Shredder
I’m usually an exceptional record keeper. I’ve been known to hang on to important paperwork for several years; this was something that I’d learned from my youth, on the advice of my parents. While this practice is rather antiquated (nowadays, one can always get a copy of a check online, as well as insurance benefit summaries for two years without a fee), it always helped me out in a jam. It became a problem recently, however, when I realized that my small Hicksville ranch basement had become overloaded with file cabinets and papers.
Upon the advice of a friend, last summer I contacted Safety Shred, who promptly set up an appointment for me to have all old documents safely shredded. I enjoyed the process; I got to watch from the comfort of my own front door. I even ventured outdoors to watch the gentleman who was performing the shredding; a photo camera strategically placed inside showed where all of my papers were being fed into an industrial sized shredding machine inside the truck. Within about a half hour, years of documents were safely ripped into confetti-like pieces of paper and my basement was once again clear. The fee wasn’t all that painful, either.
After that experience, I vowed to never again allow years of documents to pile up. It went against all that I had learned, but I never wanted to see my basement look like Oscar Madison’s office ever again.
At the end of 2014, my husband and I went through all paperwork that we had accrued throughout the year. I had mentioned that I didn’t want the basement to look like it had; he had responded that it might be a good idea to hang onto the paperwork from all insurance companies, should we have an issue with a physician’s billing department. I agreed, and we stored the paperwork safely away in a corner. I say “safely,” because I thought that I would remember what was inside the bag of papers.
We had several grocery bags that were filled with the paperwork from 2013 and 2014, so we placed the 2013 paperwork near our personal shredder. I was a bit overzealous, however, and shredded everything in one sitting. Everything— including all of the papers that we vowed to retain until 2016. As Homer Simpson would say —“Doh!”
An issue surfaced this week that required something that was supposed to be held onto until next year. When I went to the basement to find all of the papers that I thought I had saved, imagine my surprise when I realized I had shred everything—including all documents that would be required for filing taxes for 2014. I never, ever do that—I usually wait until taxes are done before I tackle the chore of shredding. I cannot even believe that I did it—and now everything is gone.
I was able to retrieve some of the paperwork via my online bank accounts, and I was grateful that I managed to save the checkbook register from last year. This began the painstaking task of going through each and every check online; I will shortly begin the process of printing checks, in order for my husband to itemize the taxes.
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I was a little too eager to chop everything to shreds; the memory of a basement that was literally vomiting with paperwork was still too fresh in my mind. It might be time to take that antiquated system to the curb, and look into one of those new-fangled copiers that scans your paperwork and saves it in a hard file on your computer. I might be safe then—as long as I don’t dump the file.
