Bag #3.
Yup. Three grocery bags full of shredding just from my files. This isn't even my writing backlog; this is just from my regular files of taxes, bank statements, and the like.
I have been saving the stuff for seven years, but, now that everything is electronic including filing my taxes (and has been for many years), why am I saving this stuff? The government says unless I am claiming a loss, I only have to save this stuff for three years.
Who am I to questions the government? (Cue ironic music here.)
Last weekend I shredded so much that my shredder actually started smoking. I quickly unplugged it and fanned it off while emptying the paper contents so as not to start a brush fire inside my apartment.
But, truth be told, the rest of it has to go. So, today is the day.
Not going to lie -- the older taxes take the longest because they involve the most paperwork and saved ridiculousness. The bank statements go much more quickly, which is rather depressing. One would hope that the bank statements would be thicker and more robust than the outgoing tax stuff. (One would be wrong.)
Probably takes me four hours over the course of two afternoons, from start to finish, from sorting files to destroying files. Sure, now that the task is done, I'm quite certain someone will come looking for something majorly important . . . probably the (damn) government. I'll show them this picture, happy faces and all, and smile, perhaps all the way to jail, but there are worse retirement plans, I suppose. At least I'll get a pretty orange jumpsuit and three squares a day.
Bonus - I'm willing to bet I won't need the shredder in jail, so there is that.
