Being Paperless at Home
Going paperless has been on the best decisions I have made to keep clutter at bay in my kitchen and office areas.
HERE is a video on my paperless filing system. If you want to take all of your old papers from your filing cabinet and go paperless, this will give you all the info on how to do that.
Today I am going to share with you how to get started today to reduce the paper in your home starting right now. I put a question box out on Instagram stories and these tips are in response to the questions you have asked me.
So how do you get started? This is an easy one! You start with the paper that comes in your house today! When you check the mail or when your kids come home from school with papers, you can get started! You can also start with the little piles you may find on your desk and on your kitchen counter.
But even better, you can get started BEFORE the paper arrives. According to consumer advocate and money expert Clark Howard on his website Clark.com you can use several ways to opt out of paper before it enters your home. HERE is the link to this article.
We have a Post Office Box and a lot of junk mail goes there. As long as it does not have any personal information on it, I take 30 seconds, while standing in the Post Office, to trash the junk mail.
So let’s walk through the action of checking your mail.
You walk to the mailbox (or send one of your kids out) and bring the mail back in. You have 2 options. Take 2 minutes and deal with it or plop it on your kitchen counter and let it pile up. I’m recommending that you take the 2 minutes. It’s very unlikely that we don’t have 2 minutes to take care of this.
Junk mail - trash it immediately or shred it if it has personal information in it. This is typically 75 to 90% of our mail.
Bills - is this something you need to pay? Can you do this right now? If not, create a spot that you check at least once a week. For me, this is my To Do folder. I put things that need to be done here and check it at least once a week. But it is VERY important to note that I usually have the extra minute to take care of this task right away.
Something important that I will need to keep - First we must ask ourself if we have to keep this. Will we need it again? If that is a for sure thing, I will file this is my TO SCAN folder. This a folder I put paper in and scan it about every 3 months.
In answer to the question, how often do I scan paper? It’s become about once every 3 months. I have learned that I do not need to keep as much paper as I thought I did. So when the folder is looking a little full, I take 30 minutes to an hour and scan it all in.
What about when your kids come home with papers?
Notes for parents that I will need to reference back to. These are school calendars or memos that aren’t immediate, but for the future. I will snap a photo of these and add them to my Evernote file. At the end of the school year I delete all of these and start fresh for next year. (This was when my kids went to a brick and mortar school. Now they go online and everything this via email and I love it so much!)
Art and handwriting pieces. My kids used to bring home a full folder each week. I would go through it and choose 1 (maybe 2 or maybe 0) pieces to keep. I have a box for each of my kids that have their important art pieces, handwriting papers, and awards for each year. I will immediately file this away and discretely trash the rest. We might have a drawing that lives on the side of the fridge for a week and then we swap it out the next week. Make these decisions fast and you will have less of this paper to process in the future.
Notes or sign up sheets. Take the one minute to sign the permission form and put it back in the folder. Not only are you keeping the paper piles at bay, but you are saving yourself time by getting this done now. (Not when the school calls and has to have you come all the way over there because you forgot!)
2 other common items we have in our home are receipts and coupons.
Receipts:
Something you might need to return. I keep this in my PENDING folder. I make a note at the top of the receipt for what this actually is. For example - Elsie’s brown spring sandals. I go through this folder occasionally and toss out what we have worn or used.
An expensive item or electronic that I need to keep for a warranty. I will scan this in. So it goes in my TO SCAN folder with a note.
Receipts for tax purposes. TO SCAN folder. Again, I make a note if it’s not self explanatory.
Most receipts are trashed.
Coupons:
We trash most coupons, but there are a few we like to keep for places we frequent. You can save $5 on a bucket of chicken at Popeyes with a coupon and our family is all about that! I will fold this coupon sheet up and put it in the console of my car. When I replace it with a new one I will trash the old one.
Be sure to ask yourself if you will really use this coupon. So many coupons have a fine print that makes you spend a certain amount of money and so it voids the savings. Most of our favorite places have apps that have coupons and I prefer those instead.
Tip - if you are unsure as to if you need to keep something, you can always scan it using your notes app and delete it later!
I have photos of my desk from my pre-paperless days and it isn’t pretty! Either I would have a few piles of paper or I would shove them in a drawer to deal with later. This would always create a problem and a mountain of work down the road. I have saved myself so much money and time by dealing with paper the minute it comes in the door and by being ok with trashing or shredding 90%+ of the paper that enters my home.
You can be paperless at home too! Start today with what comes in from the mail box!