I recommend scanning all of your paperwork and saving it on an external hard drive or a USB key. And if you have to keep the originals, organize them, but who wants to dig through a folder of papers if you just need a document for quick reference? Plug in the USB drive and you have much easier access.

@pecan 3.14159265: I tried doing that years ago and I got through 8 statements before I was ready to gouge my eyes out.

What scanner/software do you recommend for those not into bloodletting?

@Applekid: My printer is also a scanner. It works like a charm. You really just have to stick with it. I don't know how to really make it fun..I just think about the nightmares I would go through if I actually did lose documents, and I think about the hours it would take to find these documents if I couldn't have a way to organize them. Also, papercuts are a risk too.

@pecan 3.14159265: My copier at work can scan and email a document to you. It's fairly easy and can auto-feed about 30 pages at a time. I've used it for several items I wanted an extra copy of.

@pecan 3.14159265: That's a lot of up-front work for a document that you may never need again. And it's no solution at all if it's annoying enough that people find a reason to put off doing it.

I figure that I need to store every document just in case, but most of them are never needed again. And it has to be easy or I wouldn't stick with it. So it's more important to make the filing process easy, even if it meant that it was harder to find a particular document later.

What I do is buy an expanding file each year for that year's documents. I get the kind of file with slots for each letter of the alphabet, then I file documents by company name. Filing each receipt into the right slot is almost as quick as throwing them in a shoebox, and if I ever need to find an old receipt I don't have a lot of stuff to go through.

If I wanted to get a scanner involved, I suppose I'd start going through my older records and scan the ones that were still important, before throwing out all the paper.

@kjherron: I only scan important documents like insurance papers, car papers, medical bills, etc. There's not so much up-front work once you get through the initial piles and start doing it on a monthly basis.

6 vacation spots was silly. Maybe useful for people who always had their heart set on a specific place in South America or Iceland, and now would definitely be a time to go for that. But for people who have a sum of money and want to max out on vacationing, how does London make the list. London? Yes, it's cheaper than usual, but that doesn't mean it's cheap - and you can stretch your dollar a lot farther than in the most expensive city in the world!

(In some rankings ([www.citymayors.com]) London is the most expensive city in the world. In others, it's below Moscow, Oslo, Tokyo, or a few others. But it seems to consistently be in the top 5).

Just because it's on sale doesn't mean it's a good deal!

/planning a vacation in W.Virginia. THAT's where you go when you're on a budget.

@oneandone: If you can go a little farther, Nashville, Tenn. is one of my favorite cities.

@kjherron:

I started this last summer. I didn't "BackScan", but scanned only new documents. It has been a life saver to manage the paperwork and find documents that you didn't know you needed until you need it. I use a receipt scanner, and scan in B&W only. The scanner is quick and the files are small.

I also find that I can avoid scanning by just downloading my statements in PDF format (CC and Checking, etc.) from the banks web site. I keep them organized in directories and everything is easy to find and my desk is clutter free. (Documents come out of the scanner and into the shredder.) I burn the docs onto DVD and place them into my safety deposit box for off site backup.

My biggest concern is security though if someone were to hack my PC, all kinds of info out there.