Best Results Organizing

By the beginning of February, most consumers have the doldrums. New Year’s resolutions to organize finances have faded in the shadow of piles of credit card statement reflecting holiday excesses. This February, however, brings some good news, as most of the elements of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, designed to bring a little bit of fairness to credit card practices, rolls into place as of 2/22/2010.

A few of the provisions actually went into effect last August, just three months after Congress passed the law. As of last summer, lenders are now required to mail credit card statements 21 days before the payment is due. You might have noticed a lead-time creep over the past few years, when companies were only required to mail statements 14 days prior to due dates. With weekends and national holidays in the mix, it gave very little turnaround time for struggling (or disorganized) consumers.

Another provision that went into effect last August was requiring 45 days advanced notice of changes to interest rates and fees. Credit card companies used to only have to give only 15 days of advanced notice before raising interest rates.

What do the new changes mean for you? 

Let’s Talk About Rates, Baby!

Perhaps one of the biggest boons for consumers is the new provision that credit card issuers can’t increase rates on existing balances unless:

–payments are more than 60 days late
–the teaser rate has expired
–your card has a variable rate tied to a financial index that has increased

Until now, when your credit card rate changed, it would mean increasing the interest rates on your pre-existing balance–a retroactive rate hike! It would be like the clerk from the grocery store showing up at your house, demanding more money for the pint of Ben & Jerry’s you bought the prior night.

Sure, we all know that the best thing is to never carry a credit card balance, but this is the real world and Paper Doll realizes that some of you do carry balances, that there are no unicorns and that George Clooney hasn’t called to make sure I’ve saved Valentine’s Day for him. (Sigh…)

If you’re carrying a credit card balance at a non-teaser fixed rate and you’re keeping your payments current, your issuer can’t raise the rate on that balance. And, except for expiring teaser rates, credit card issuers can’t increase the interest rate on new purchases in the first year you hold a card.

Note, however, that the interest rates on all future purchases can increase (as long as the issuer abides by the other rules, as noted throughout this post).

Don’t Be A Tease

In the past, credit card company teaser rates (those low, low rates they dangle to get you to sign up?) sometimes lasted as few as five or six weeks! Under the CARD Act, teaser rates must stay in effect for at least six months. No more sneaky teases!

It’s a Whole New Universe!

Had you ever heard of universal default? That was the policy that credit card companies could (and would) raise your rates if they learned that you had been late or otherwise defaulted on terms of other accounts unrelated to their own company. Rates of 6.9% had previously shot up to 29.9% on Card A because a person had been reported late (even if reported in error) on Card B operated by another company. Now, the CARD Act has eliminated universal default, bringing things back down to Earth.

Stop Spinning Your Wheels–No More Double-Cycle Billing

Another sneaky method some credit card companies have used is two-cycle billing, where issuers were averaging daily balances from the previous billing cycle because carrying a balance eliminates a cardholder’s right to a grace period. Yes, if you had a card with two-cycle billing (I’m looking at you, DiscoverCard!), you were paying interest on debt you’d already paid! The CARD Act does away with two-cycle billing.

In The Interest of Full Disclosure

Savvy Paper Doll readers certainly already know that if one only pays the “minimum” payment required by a credit card company, it can take years of extra payments (and extra interest) to pay off credit card debt. However, many consumers don’t realize this, and they certainly don’t realize the extent to which their payments for that fancy dinner or fuzzy sweater will be drawn out over time. The CARD Act requires that monthly credit card statements indicate how long it will take to pay off a balance (and the total cost, including all that pesky interest) if you make only minimum payments.

Although this wasn’t required to go into effect until February 22nd, Citi and other card issuers have already started sending the new statements. One consumer with a balance of slightly less than $2700 was shocked to see, in black and white, that paying only the minimum would take 16 years and almost another $2700 in interest! Paper Doll believes the CARD Act disclosures will have a profound impact on the speed with which consumers who are able to pay more towards balances will do so.

Over The Top

In the past, credit card companies could automatically charge you a fee if you went over your credit limit. You’d probably figure that if you have a $5000 credit limit on a card, if your current purchase would put you over the limit, the store clerk would lean over quietly and say “Pardon me, but there seems to be a problem. Perhaps we should use another card.” But nooooooo. Credit card companies apparently believed that the huge humiliation (note my dripping sarcasm?) of such an experience was preferable to huge fees tacked on to an already over-limit card, fees which would then have interest charged on them.

Once the CARD Act goes into effect, over limit fees can only be applied to your purchases if you opt in and give prior approval to the credit card company.

Ready, Fire, Aim: Apply Payments Where They Should Go

As a professional organizer, I’ve had to show clients how they were getting raked over the coals by credit card companies in unexpected ways. Most never knew that if they had a promotional rate (0%, 1.9%, etc.) for a balance transfer to a card that already had a balance, or continued to use that card after doing a balance transfer, that the credit card company wasn’t applying the payments as they assumed. Credit card companies generally applied payments to the lowest interest rate balances, allowing higher interest rate balances to pile up.

Let’s say you transferred a balance of $10,000 to your card, using a 0% promotion. Plus the 3% or 4% processing fee. That fee, plus the transferred amount, would be at 0% until the rate expired. Let’s say you then charged $300 on that same card. Even if you turned around and paid back $300, the $300 would be applied towards your balance with a 0% rate, while your $300 purchase rate balance would sit there, racking up interest, until the original $10,000 was paid off. And it was all explained in the tiny legalese that few consumers ever read.

Now, under the CARD Act, payments in excess of that sneaky old “minimum payment” must be applied against the balance with the highest interest rate first, and then to any other balances, in descending order according to interest rate, yielding impressive long-term consumer savings.

Gimme A Call

If travel or disorganization might keep you from mailing a payment in time to reach the card issuer by deadline, you have electronic alternatives. Online bill-payment from your bank (or right at your credit card company’s site) can give you last minute breathing room. But what if you’re traveling and have no access to Wi-Fi? What if you get hit by a wacky winter storm and have no electricity, let alone internet access? There’s always the phone! However, lots of credit card companies have charged a convenience fee for paying a bill by phone.

Under the CARD Act, if a credit card company does offer a pay-by-phone option, it has to be free unless you need to use a live service representative (instead of a robo-phone) to make a rush payment.

Do You Believe The Children Are Our Future?

Two other provisions will have a direct impact on the future financial health of young adults. In the past, anyone over 18 could apply for (and likely receive) a credit card without substantive proof of financial solvency. With the CARD Act:

–Applicants under 21 years of age will have to have an adult co-sign for their credit cards or otherwise provide actual proof of regular income. 

–Credit card issuers will no longer be allowed to offer sign-up gifts (t-shirts, mugs, flash drives, etc.) on or near (within 1000 feet of) college campuses, or at events sponsored by colleges.

By making it less likely that college students can amass credit cards (and therefore credit card debt) as easily as they can scarf up free pizza, the next generation should be able to graduate without debilitating mounds of (non-educational) financial obligations.

A Chance for a Do-Over

One provision won’t go into effect until August 2010. With it, if consumers are assessed a penalty interest rate because of a late payment, they can reclaim that prior (lower) rate if they pay on time for six consecutive months.

Of course, these new rules mean that lenders are going to be looking for other ways to sock it to you (like charging annual fees for participation in rewards programs), so you still have to be aware and diligent when handling your finances. Be sure to:

Review your statements each month before paying & filing them away. If you use paperless billing, you’re helping the environment but you may not notice small changes if you can’t take a pen or highlighter to mark the changes. (Please, no little highlighter circles on your monitor!  It will make reading future Paper Doll posts very difficult.)

Know the terms of your credit card agreement so you can quickly notice changes or errors and take advantage of opportunities:

• What is your interest rate right now?
• If you have multiple rates (due to promotions) on the same card, do you know which balances are associated with which rates?
• Are your interest rates fixed or variable?
• How long is each promotional rate is in effect? (Is it until the last calendar day of a particular month, or until the last billing date in a statement period?)
• What’s your credit limit on each card? How much of it are you using?
• Are you paying an annual fee? If so, why? Annual fees are generally for perks, so be sure that the perks are something of which you’re actually taking advantage.
• Are you earning points or miles? Have you ever used them? Check to see if you’ve earned enough to get cash back or a statement credit, which provides a better return on investment than dribbles of hard-to-redeem airline miles.

Rein in any bad habits that might negatively impact your FICO score, as we discussed previously.

Know which credit card issuers offer the best alternatives for your particular situation and spending habits. (That way, if your rates do increase, you’ll have time to evaluate the best replacement card.) Do you need a low-interest card? One that offers a particular type of rewards? Peruse sites like BillShrink.com and BankRate.com to analyze your options and search by card issuer, credit score level or card type.

An organized, educated consumer is a powerful force. Paper Doll readers, flex your muscles!

We’re coming to the end of our month-long Get Organized Month course on paper control. In our first semester, we reviewed the basics, including identifying and evaluating incoming papers (and the backlog), purging unnecessary papers, halting the influx of junk mail, credit card and marketing offers and other cluttery mail, and developing an initial system for paper management.

In our advanced semester, we offered up shredder wisdom and reviewed how to develop a digital system matched to your paper organizing system. And last week’s graduate course covered the vital topic of vital documents and creating a system for keeping you out of jail, out of unwarranted debt and off the terrorist watch list. (This advice was limited to proving identity and payment; if you’re actually a bad guy, you’re on your own.)

All of this leaves you prepared to take the open book test that is life–keeping you chaos-free in the paper department. There’s only one final lesson, with variations on a theme.

In general, I believe in filing systems using actual files. Whether you run a home business or the business of your home, papers stored vertically in file folders (in their myriad forms, from plain 1/3 cut manila folders and olive green hanging folders to brightly hued versions) give you the least expensive, most expansive, opportunity to organize your life. However, there’s a more important lesson to take than “files rule and vertical storage rocks”:

If you don’t like your system, you won’t commit to it.

Human beings are tricky; we’re not cookie cutter automatons. Some people can’t abide anything short of a Skittles “Taste the Rainbow” panoply of colors; others find the mere sight of filing cabinets to be distasteful. If you don’t like the aesthetics of your system, no matter how well it works in the abstract, you’re not going to faithfully use it. If you avoid the system, you’ll avoid the action, and your papers will continue to pile up around you. Soon your Paper Doll University diploma will be sandwiched between car wash coupons and your 1099s on the sticky kitchen counter. That won’t make anyone happy.

So, taking everything you’ve already learned in the prior coursework into account, there are variations to consider for each type of paper in your life:

REFERENCE PAPER/FILES

You’ve studied up and you know you have to have an organized way to keep your financial, legal, medical, household and personal reference files orderly so you can retrieve what you need at a moment’s notice. But the minute you read “filing”, you started to cringe.

Chance are, you don’t hate filing, just the ugly metal filing cabinets that remind you of your old corporate job or the principal’s office. There are any number of gorgeous alternatives to gunmetal grey cabinets. At one end of the design continuum, there are the colorful plastic milk crates file boxes; at the other, there are luxurious leather file boxes.

There are glorious filing cabinets designed to fit your office dcor, as well as filing-cabinet ottomans, baskets and boxes that range from quirky to CEO-chic. If you need to move your files from kitchen to home office, or home office to your studio, there are all manner of file carts for your pop-a-wheelie pleasure, like these from

   Safeco or Rubbermaid.

And what if you have a perfectly good filing cabinet that just bores you to tears? There’s always the DIY approach.

(For more filing container delights, I direct you to the blog of my favorite organizational product maven, the incomparable Jeri Dansky who has her finger on the pulse of form+function magnificence.)

Of course, there’s a popular alternative to using file folders altogether: the binder. As we’ve discussed in past posts, ringed binders are especially great for keeping track of financial data like banking and investment statements, as well as recipes.

A major advantage of storing reference materials in binders is that it makes it eminently portable. If you want to carry five years of retirement investment statements to your new financial planner, a binder is far easier to tote than an overfilled folders. (As with people, folders get unwieldy with too much tonnage.) For those concerned with aesthetics, there are some very attractive pre-made binder options out there; alternatively, the plastic front/back covers and spines of most binders let you quickly decorate them by inserting photos (…even a down stock market is cheerier if George Clooney’s looking back at you) or useful information (like metric conversions for the front of your recipe binder).

The main disadvantage of binders vs. folders is added labor. To walk your fingers along file tabs until you locate the correct file into which you drop a piece of paper takes mere seconds. However, punching holes (or placing a piece of paper in a plastic sheet protector) takes longer, making people less likely to file as they go. The more the paper clutter piles up (like dishes in the sink), the more forbidding the task seems.

INCOMING PAPER

Of course, before paper can ever be filed away (or acted upon), you need to figure out what it is, and to do that, it’s best to have all the paper that enters your house or office start off in one place. If all the new mail, receipts and papers get plopped down anywhere from the couch to the top of the microwave, your system will break down before it ever gets started.

The horizontal paper gathering device is better known by its more common name: the lowly in-tray. In-trays can be plastic, metal or mesh. A dishpan from the dollar store is as unbreakable as it is unremarkable, but is great when you’re teaching the tiniest members of your household how to put papers away without concern for damage. Standard trays run the gamut from utilitarian pieces from office supply stores

to more eclectic options at  online specialty shops (like See Jane Work), and they can all run from single-story to skyscraper style, depending on your needs.

If you’re short on flat space, incoming papers can also find a vertical home in containers as simple as those smoky plastic wall pockets outside your doctor’s examination rooms, to magnetic stainless steel and canvas options like these from the Container Store:

to decor-matching solutions suitable for the Colonel Mustard in the Library.

ACTION PAPER

Once papers enter your life and have been deemed worthy of avoiding the shredder, they either need be filed away (“sent home”) for reference or acted upon. Indeed, most of the paper clutter in which people drown are items that represent actions or tasks they must perform. Regular readers of this blog know how much I love tickler files

for prioritizing and easing the handling of action paper. (While I can’t say “I like them so much, I bought the company”, I can say I like them so much, I wrote a book about them!) There are multiple brands and styles of tickler files, from the portable accordion-style standard to the DIY-version you can make with 43 folders (31 for the days of the month, plus 12 for each individual month), which you can keep in a desk-top file box, either plain-jane plastic or fashion-forward. There are even vertical versions of tickler files to use a week at a time, like EZ-Pocket from OnlineOrganizing. 

(One caveat: Slotted wooden products are designed for mail and are too small for action papers.)

Not everyone is keen on tickler files, however, and some people prefer to create action folders (To Read, To Write, To Call, To Pay, etc.). Unlike reference files, which are best kept corralled away from the prime real estate, action files belong where you can see them…they just shouldn’t lay flat on the desktop.  Open desktop file boxes   and file risers/sorters   are perfect homes for these task-oriented files divided by category. (Get a riser that elevates each file progressively, like stadium seating at the movies.) However, as the these categories aren’t sorted or prioritized by date, be sure to schedule blocks of time on your calendar so your must-do items don’t languish in the folders.

TRAVELING PAPER

In addition to dealing with the incoming, action and reference paper, there’s another kind of paper that straddles all of these categories–paper that you need when you’re moving through space, time and life. Paper Doll University’s extension courses have previously covered the systems and products for dealing with personal and business papers that travel when you do:

Mobile Mavens:  Keeping the Personal Paper Portable When You’re Out and About

A Culinary Model for Successful Mobile Offices

Don’t forget to keep track of the papers you need for traveling. One of our readers commented last week about losing track of vital documents before traveling, and maintaining those documents while on the move is also always a concern.  I advise:

1) As soon as you receive your travel confirmations (tickets, itineraries, car/hotel reservation confirmation numbers, etc.), make sure you have everything you need (including toll-free numbers). Now that e-tickets are the norm, it’s ridiculously easy to print two copies of your itinerary or receipt and no actual ticket/boarding information.

2) Next, print two copies (oh, the trees!) or email copies to a trusted friend (or two) who is always online and available in an emergency. If you are traveling with a partner, each should keep a copy of the other’s info; also, plan to keep an extra copy of your papers in your suitcase in the event your main copy is lost during your trip, after arriving at your destination.

3a) Put travel confirmations in a poly envelope that seals with an elastic band or snap, preferably one that is translucent so that you can place your documents in the order in which you’ll need them. Move the flight itinerary facing out the front; after you’ve used your ticket, have your rental car or hotel reservations facing the back so you can read them without evening opening the envelope.

3b) Keep tickets in the poly envelope OR in a passport/ticket wallet. Faux-classy vinyl or leather portfolios allow you to keep your passport, ticket, other ID all snugly together when you’re traveling abroad. 

4) Put the poly envelope in your tickler file for the day before you’re going to travel, so you can review your documents and travel times. If you don’t use a tickler, be sure to note in your calendar where you’ve placed your tickets and paperwork. (If your office isn’t yet organized, consider putting the paperwork in your carry-on bag, so you’ll see it when you start packing for your trip.)

5) When you return from your trip, empty the poly envelope and passport/ticket wallet as part of the unpacking process. Make sure your passport and various forms of ID go back to their permanent homes when their (and your) vacation is over.

Congratulations, Paper Doll University graduates! Go forth and master your paperwork!

Paper Doll once found a bug.

“Eeek!”, right? Well, not exactly.

In the process of working with a client, I opened a kitchen cabinet to find a plastic zipper-locked baggie with one perfectly preserved and entirely dead insect. The baggie was nestled vertically between two straight rows of juice glasses in an otherwise perfectly arrayed cabinet. Retrieving the baggie, trying to be both delicate and jaunty, I asked my client what was up. She smiled, sighed, and said, “Well, I have to show the exterminator what I found and where, and I couldn’t figure out how to do that unless I put the bug back where I found it.”

I still recall thinking that the client would still have to remember where she’d put the baggie, and if she remembered where she put it, then she wouldn’t need the baggie there anymore. (I also remember thinking that maybe she could have taken a photo of the little creature, but perhaps her exterminator needed to do an autopsy, CSI: Kitchen-style.)

Setting aside the Kafkaesque connection of this anecdote, I think it reflects the problems many people face when they have no paper control system.

Obstacles

During the run-up to Get Organized Month, I received a mailing from Smead (one the two main filing solution bigwig companies) with some information regarding their recent survey researching people’s paper management habits. The survey included finding out where people stored their VIPs (what Paper Doll calls those very important paper documents like birth certificates and passports).

       

In part, the mailing said:

Under the mattress, inside shoeboxes and even in the garage are just a few of the places that people use to safeguard their personal documents — which perhaps explains why 30 percent of Americans have lost important papers….The survey asked respondents to list the most unusual place where important documents are hidden and found that 10 percent of Americans keep personal documents in an underwear drawer and six percent use shoeboxes. Respondents also listed kitchen cupboards, the garage and even under the mattress as a place to store personal papers.

Like my client with the baggied bug, when not entirely sure where papers should go, people tend to put things where they feel they will be kept safe (underwear drawers or under mattresses) or where they will be seen often enough (kitchen cabinets) to be remembered. Apparently the recent news story about the woman who lost her hidden-in-a-mattress life savings is not enough to dissuade people from valuing hidden over secure.

The survey found that upwards of 30% of Americans had reporting losing an “important document”, and acknowledged that replacing those documents took multiple days. Paper Doll has previously reported on the procedures for replacing lost vital documents, including birth certificates, Social Security cards and passports. If you’ve had to follow those steps, you can verify that it’s certainly easier to put a fool-proof system in place than to feel foolish, wasting time in-line or on the phone, trying to replace mortgage paperwork that you “just know is here somewhere”.

Smead’s survey asked people why they hadn’t gotten their important personal documents organized. A striking 40% of those surveyed mentioned that they lacked the time or were overwhelmed by the process of getting these documents organized. As any professional organizer, and anyone who has lived through a natural or other disaster, would be quick to tell those respondents, trying to recover from a catastrophe without easy access to one’s most important papers is much more overwhelming!

Survey respondents also told interviewers that not knowing what papers they could get rid of, and what was important to keep, prevented them from moving forward. (The anxiety over making a mistake on this front is easily solved with a records retention schedule or, ahem, my Do I Have To Keep This Piece of Paper?).

Another reason respondents gave for having no organizing system for their most important papers was that they simply didn’t know where to start. If only I had been able to piggyback on each of these survey questions, I’d have taken these people by the hand and assured them that it simply doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you get started, because you never know when you’ll have an urgent need for your vital documents.

Solutions

When they sent out their survey results, Smead presented their three-part approach to organizing vital papers, a philosophy with which I think all professional organizers would agree:

• Keep it Simple
• Keep it Safe
• Keep it Handy

Keeping it simple starts with…just getting started. Maybe you already know that your passport is in the bottom of your carry-on bag. Perhaps you’re pretty sure your firstborn’s Social Security card is paper-clipped to those little inky hospital-record footprints, tucked in the bottom of the long-unused changing table. If so, you’re ahead of the game.

However, if you’re just trying to imagine what documents are important, get a head start by making a list based the items discussed in these past posts:

Top 10 Vital Documents–Do You Know Where Your VIPs Are?
More VIPs–Very Important Papers Beyond The Top 10
I Fought The Law…and the Paperwork Won

Once you’ve made your list, visit all the usual suspect venues in your home until you’ve found as many VIPs as you can. When you’ve given up on locating something apparently lost, or realize there’s a document you never actually had, set about acquiring replacements. But you don’t need to wait until you have everything before you organize your documents.

Keeping it safe means creating a home that will protect your VIPs from natural and other disasters, as well as from theft and even the prying eyes of snooping household visitors. Often, people think this means getting a bank safe deposit box, but that’s not necessarily the case. In times of natural disasters, banks are often closed or at least inaccessible at the very time you will need documentation for proof of identity, ownership, insurance, etc. If you do keep originals in the safe deposit box, be sure to have accessible photocopies, especially for insurance policies and property deeds, in your file system.  

A fireproof, waterproof safe or file box, one designed specifically to hold hanging files, and preferably one that is light enough to carry, should be adequate to protect your most vital documents from the elements (and the bad guys).

Keeping it handy means that accessibility is key. If you create a fabulous file system for your reference files and vital documents, but bury it in the back of your closet so that you literally have to duck under old coats to retrieve files, you’re likely to find every excuse to avoid returning them once you’ve used them or filing newly-acquired vital documents. If the home for your VIPs is inconvenient, your passport probably won’t make it back home after a vacation, your Social Security card will languish on your desk after you’ve filed for benefits, and your kids’ birth certificates will stay piled up with the school registration paperwork.

Conversely, there are ways of keeping your documents a little too handy. I’ve seen people keep a desktop file box in the kitchen with all of their essential documents. Security issues aside, that might be fine if there’s a built-in desk area in a kitchen, but an open-top file box on or next to the stove, sitting out on the counter or balancing on a kitchen chair is an invitation to getting your vital documents overly toasted or soaked with Fruit-Loopy milk. Keep your file system somewhere far away from direct heat, moisture, the not-so-nimble fingers of toddlers (and their crayons) and family pets.

So…

1. Collect your very important documents from the four corners of the Earth. (OK, from around your home, and perhaps your parents or in-laws’ home.)
2. Review the lists provided above to make sure you haven’t missed anything vital.
3. Label a few simple file folders (or, if you’re super-short on time, just put them all in a Kraft envelope and label it Vital Documents). 
4. Create a designated home for your VIPs.
5. Document (preferably in the computer) what records and paperes you own and where they’re located (so you won’t run to the bank when your passport is actually in your file box).

Share Your Story:

The survey results showed that most Americans rank their Social Security card as their most important personal document. The breakdown:

47%     Social Security Card
22%     Birth Certificates (their own and those of family members)
11%     Ownership documents, including deeds, titles and stock certificates
10.5%  Passport
9.9%    Wills

Readers, what is your most important personal document? If missing, what VIP item would cause you the most distress? And perhaps, most importantly, do you know where that item is right now?

Do you have a fun story about losing (and hopefully finding) your papers, or about storing them in unusual places? Please share your tales in the comment section…once you’ve gone to check to make sure everything is where it should be.

Welcome back to to Paper Doll University.

People may feel reluctant to share the details of their organizing obstacles because they feel the clutter (tangible or temporal) is somehow a sign of a personal failing. They blame themselves. (In truth, clutter comes from a lack systems and skills appropriate for both the person and the project.)

But with paper, most people have a “me vs. paper” adversarial approach. With paper playing the role of an ever-encroaching villain, people are more comfortable admitting to their ongoing battles and seeking help. Indeed, last week’s post post was the most widely read in Paper Doll‘s almost 2 1/2 year history, and yielded a lot of reader mail and requests for more information on some of the paper basics.

So, if last week was Paper Control 101, let’s consider this the second semester course, with advanced topics and office hours.

Last week, after the topic of “Toss or shred what you don’t need…”, people asked:

“What should I look for in a shredder?”

Good question! Not all shredders are equal. To flummox identity thieves, reduce clutter and keep your sanity, consider the following:

—Size Matters–Tiny desk-top shredders with 4.5″ feeders look adorable. But the narrow feeder means you’ll have to fold almost every piece of paper you shred, as only envelopes will be narrow enough to be fed without folding…and how often do you need to shred an envelope? These tiny shredders also tend to have horizontal rather than vertical feeders, meaning you have to take more time and be more precise just to get the shredder to eat the papers. Opt for shredders with 9″ feeders, more than wide enough for standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.

Next, decide whether you want one with an attached bin/receptacle (basically, a small metal or rubber trash can to catch the shredded items) or a bin-free one (where you set the shredder atop your own rectangular bin). Either will work, but the all-in-ones assure a good fit, so you’re less likely to have a snowstorm of hanging chads if your toddler or pet wobbles by.

—Consider Capacity–It does no good to buy a fancy-schmancy shredder that rips credit cards and CDs right down to the atomic structure if it balks at eating more than three pieces of paper at once. And it’s a waste of money to buy a sophisticated, “heavy duty” office model shredder if you will only be shredding a handful of papers each day. Medium-range office shredders can handle upwards of 30 pages at a time; bargain-basement home shredders may get indigestion from a greeting card. For personal use, a shredder with an 8-12 sheet capacity should be a good choice, but remember, shredders for home use aren’t designed to handle hundreds of pages at a clip. (So, if you’ve cleaned out 5 years’ worth of old files, don’t expect to shred them all in one day. After 100 sheets, most home shredders will overheat and you’ll have to walk away for at least an hour.)

—TeenyTiny Is Tops (for Security)!–I’m not sure anyone in real life ever went to the effort of to reproduce full pages out of old-school shredded strips (they way they do in myriad movies and TV shows), but it remains that 1/8″ inch strips could be reconstructed into full pages if someone had patience. For the utmost security, you want to use either a cross-cut or “micro-shred” shredder. If what you’ve got left when you’ve finished shredding is only good for confetti or packing material, you’ve hit the mark.

–Other factors (besides price) worth evaluating:

Can it handle staples? For some of us, lack of a staple-eating feature is a deal-breaker.

Will it make a mess? Some shredders have pull-out drawers, while others require carefully removing the shredding mechanism (bomb squad style), dumping the contents and then putting it all together again. Either way, have a vacuum handy.

How loud is it? As with hair dryers, often the more expensive, professional versions will be quieter, but for personal use, the higher price isn’t worth the cost of trading a trash-compactor-crossed-with-a-plane-overhead grind for a gentle hum. Just turn the radio volume up.

Last week, in the section entitled “Consider technological alternatives”, I used a phrase that got a lot of you writing and tweeting. Tell us more, they beckoned, about the dangers of Scanning Without Planning

It all starts with knowing why you’ve decided to start scanning in the first place. For a small group, the notion is something along the lines of “I don’t have a great deal of space, so if I scan all of my reference papers into the computer, I can maintain all of the things I previously neatly filed away. I’ll still be able to locate what I want quickly and easily, but I can yield that filing cabinet real estate to something more fun (like a ficus, a stripper pole, or wine refrigerator.” These folks have a plan–they’ll mirror the system they already had in place in their digital storage. That’s fine.

However, for a majority of people new to scanning, the thought process is much more like, “I’m surrounded by piles of paper and I can never find stuff, so I’ll scan all of it so I’ll have it without having to step over it.” The assumption on the part of the aspiring scanner is that if the piece of paper hasn’t yet been discarded, it must be important and must be kept. This is one of the major falsehoods we tell ourselves and is the major contributor to clutter. Just because you haven’t gotten rid of it doesn’t mean you actually want or need it! (If you can’t recall why you have something, don’t assume you’ve kept something for a good reason, or even any reason.)

So, before embarking on a Scan-a-Palooza so that every clipped article, receipt, recipe and photo moves from the material world into the digital realm, please review some extra credit reading: Knowledge Is Power.

The next step is to set up a digital file system that echoes your paper files (i.e., financial, legal, medical, household, personal) as we’ve discussed in the past. Let’s pause for a study break while new students review the required reading from the syllabus:

Family Filing—As easy as (eating) pie
Financial Filing—Scrapbooking snapshots of your money’s life
Mom, why is there a receipt stuffed in the turkey?
I Fought the Law…and the Paperwork Won!
Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” Doctor: “Then don’t do that!”
Paper Dolls Live In Paper Households
I Hope Nobody Ever Writes a Nasty Tell-All Called “Paper Doll Dearest”!

Now it’s time for some lab work and independent study. Using the same kinds of headings and subheadings suggested in the readings above can really help determine where these scanned documents need to go. Then, before scanning even one page:

• Sort papers into general categories. (If you’re transitioning a well-organized file system, you’ll easily be able to work from sub-categories; if you’re starting with mountains of loose papers, at least having the five main categories will help your work go smoothly.)
• Scan one category of papers at a time, based on the pre-sort.
• Label your files with precision. With papers, you use logos, colors, type-faces and familiarity with layout to help you discern the difference between your bank’s monthly checking account statement and your 401(K) statement. With digital files, you’re generally working with file names only, so be specific: BoAChecking200909.pdf shows it’s your Bank of America checking account statement from September 2009. If it’s a super-duper important file that you fear losing track of, consider giving it a asterisk as part of the title, like *2010TaxReturn so that when you sort your files alphabetically, anything with an asterisk will pop up on top for quick access.
• Move newly-scanned files for each category to the appropriate major-category digital folder before moving on to scanning the next category. If you’re pressed for time, that will suffice. If you want more precision, then…
• Create subfolders for subcategories (e.g., for banking, investments, taxes, etc.) and move the scanned document files to those folders. See how it’s just like a filing cabinet?

I see you, in the back of the room, with your hand raised?

There’s always one Devil’s Advocate in any class. Well, advanced computer users will point out that “organizing your scanned files isn’t necessary anymore”, that OCR (optical character recognition) software allows you to search within PDFs and other scanned documents for keywords. And they’ll note that desktop search engines allow you to search for keywords or partial words in the names of files.

While this is generally true, Paper Doll sees two minor flaws with depending on desktop search. First, many people who haven’t ever had (or taken) the time to organize their papers won’t have the time (or the inclination) to learn about how these search functions work. Second, it’s often faster to go to your computer, click on the Financial folder, then the Bank Statement folder, then pick the dated file you need than to start trying to remember what keywords you might have used. I’m not saying using desktop search is flawed, but relying on it before you’ve ascertained that it’s the best organizing tool (or really, permission-not-to-organize tool) for you might not be the best strategy.

When Paper Doll talked about “Stopping the Flow of Paper You Don’t Need or Want” last week, we really only got to hit the high points, referencing the Direct Marketing Association and Abacus for general junk mail, the Opt Out Pre-Screen for stopping credit card offers and a list of contacts to assert your privacy rights and stop lenders from sharing your information with their “partners” for marketing purposes.

I tried to hit as many of the major players (AmEx, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Discover, First USA and Wells Fargo) as possible, but a number of you wrote in that the lenders backing your MasterCards and Visas weren’t listed. I encourage you to either Google (or Bing–is Bing a verb yet?) the name of your lender and the phrase “privacy policy” or use the Site Map of your credit card company’s web site to find the current policy and contact information.

With regard to web sites for helping you stem the tide of catalogs and junk mail, frugal Paper Doll concentrated on options that were free (or at least cost no more than $1, in the case of the Direct Marketing Association’s online option), but I should mention that there are paid mailbox decluttering options, for those of you facing a time crunch:

41Pounds (the approximate weight of junk mail the average North American adult receives each year) has a long term view. For $41 for a five-year subscription, they’ll contact several dozen direct-marketing companies for you (including the Direct Marketing Association, so you’ll recoup that $1 and the time it would have taken to contact them) to stop credit card and magazine offers, insurance promotions and any catalogs you specify. In addition, $15 of your fee goes towards supporting your choice of 41Pounds’ many green non-profit affiliates. (Thanks to Jackie Kelly, professional organizer and owner of Bethesda, MD’s Clearinghouse, for bringing my attention to 41Pounds on Twitter last week!)

Some of you also asked about Green Dimes, much ballyhooed a few years ago. They promised to remove your name from catalog and other direct-mail lists for the low, low price of $20 per year, and they’d even plant ten trees on your behalf. Sometime last year, Green Dimes became Tonic Junk Mail Stopper; now it’s Precycle, with a one-time fee of $36, and they’ll plant five trees in your honor and even send you two eco-friendly light bulbs and a reusable shopping bag.

Other for-free junk mail removal services, including ProQuo and JunkMailFixIt, ceased operations in 2009.

Happy New Year, Paper Doll readers!

Aside from health-related goals, top resolutions each year include getting organized, getting finances in order, eliminating debt …and a variety of desires that, at least in part, come down to dealing with our incoming and stagnant paper. Today, we’re going to revisit some of the basics of paper management:

1.  Know what papers you have. Some people (like Paper Doll) would no sooner skip opening the daily mail than answering a dinner invitation from George Clooney. Others check the mailbox only when it’s so full that the postal carrier starts leaving cranky notes. And most people fall in the middle of the spectrum, opening what looks like it might be important or urgent and letting the rest land “wherever” near whatever shiny distraction interrupted their paper-management process. (So that’s how cable bills end up on top of the microwave and insurance statements sneak into the laundry basket!)

The truth is, if you’re going to take control of your paper (and, by extension, your finances and life), you’ll have to open the mail, look at the notes your kids brought home from school, review the memos from your HR department…all on the day they arrive. The longer you go without doing something (laundry, visiting the dentist, balancing your checkbook), the bigger the problem tends to loom in your mind, making the time you spend procrastinating far exceed the time needed to complete the task. The trick is to face the paper every day, when it’s still bite-sized and actionable, before it piles up like mountains of dishes in the sink, seemingly insurmountable.

As motivational guru Zig Ziglar wisely said:

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing.. that’s why we recommend it daily.

2.  Toss or shred what you don’t need.

There are always times you’ll need to consult a detailed retention schedule (like my ebook, “Do I Have To Keep This Piece of Paper?”) to know whether or for how long you need to retain a document. But as you dig out from under your backlog, or even as you face today’s pile, some papers are obviously ready to be tossed:  recipes you know you’ll really never make, coupons that have expired or are for items you don’t need or wouldn’t have considered buying in the absence of a discount, flyers for events that have already happened, etc.

As for shredding, remember that anything that bears your Social Security number, bank account or credit card number, or any identifying account numbers should be shredded, preferably in a cross-cut shredder, before being discarded. However, it’s not necessary to shred envelopes or magazine covers that merely have your name, address, or even landline phone number (assuming your number is not unlisted), because these are generally a matter of public record.

3.  Stop the flow of paper you don’t need or want.

• Get off the major junk mail (sorry, direct marketing) lists.

Contact the Direct Marketing Association. Either apply online and pay $1 for processing (via a secure credit card purchase) or print a form from their site and mail it to:

Mail Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association 

P.O. Box 643 

Carmel, NY 10512

With more consumers buying online and fewer retailers going to the expense of printing catalogs, you’d think your catalog mailings might decrease, but readers are reporting that they just keep coming. To be removed from just a few catalog mailing lists, call each company’s toll-free number and request removal, but if you’re receiving dozens of catalogs you don’t want or need, contact Abacus via email (abacusoptout@epsilon.com), phone (1-888-780-3869) or postal mail:

Abacus
P.O. Box 1478
Broomfield, OH  80038 

Provide your full name (with your middle initial), current address (and prior address, if you’ve moved within the last six months) and a statement that you wish to opt out of receiving mail from their database members.

Catalog Choice is another consumer option for identifying the catalogs you don’t wish to receive. Their database does not include all possible catalogs, there have been reports of occasional retailer noncompliance, and they’re a bit cozy with online merchants, but the service is free and easy to use.

• Stop the credit card offers!

Do you receive a cluster of credit card applications (though perhaps fewer per week than before the recession)? The Fair Credit Reporting Act (which we discussed at length in the recent series, Who Knows Your Secrets?) allows consumer credit reporting companies like Equifax, Trans-Union and Experian to share your name on lists used by prospective lenders and insurers. Opt out of being “shared” like a bag of popcorn and you’ll also reduce the chance of identity thieves gaining anything of worth if they go shopping in your mailbox or trash bin.

Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT or visit OptOutPreScreen.com to mark those credit card offers Return To Sender!

The OptOutPreScreen only applies to credit bureaus, not to all the info credit card companies share with their own “affiliates” and “partners”. Lenders annually send you little tri-fold “privacy notices”, which they hope you’ll ignore, allowing you to opt out of having your data shared.

Click on the individual credit card issuer name below to read the privacy policy currently in effect, and if you want to opt out of having your mailbox filled with stuff you don’t want, don’t need to be tempted by or don’t think is doing the planet much good, use the address provided in the privacy statement, or click or call to assert your rights:

American Express
Phone:  Call the Customer Service phone number on the reverse of your specific American Express-branded card, or 1-800-THE-CARD.

Bank of America
Online:  https://www6.bankofamerica.com/privacy/Preferences.do
Phone:  1-888-282-2884

Capital One
Phone:  1-888-817-2970

Chase
Online:  https://chaseonline.chase.com/public/privacy/privacyfilter.aspx
Phone:  1-888-868-8618

Citi
Phone:  1-888-214-0017

Discover
Phone:  1-800-225-5202

First USA
Online:  https://online.cardmemberservices.com/public/privacy/privacyfilter.aspx
Phone:  1-800-869-9638

Wells Fargo
Online:  Select “Change Privacy Preferences” under the Account Services tab, if you are a logged-in account holder.
Phone:  1-888-528-8460

4.  Consider technological alternatives to getting or keeping paper in the first place.

• Scanning

Scanning papers to archive them for reference can be a great option. Discussing the relative merits of Neat Desk/Neat Receipts and Fujitu’s Scan Snap has kept NAPO’s professional organizing community buzzing during the holiday season. Bloggers seeking to go paperless are happily reporting on scanning before tossing. Hurray!

Except…scanning without planning creates the potential for a huge organizational problem. Scanned recipes, receipts and bank statements definitely take up less physical space than paper, but scanning isn’t a perfect solution. Why save digitally if you you’re no more likely to access something than if you had the papers in your filing cabinet?  Scanning tempts people into thinking they can (and should) keep everything!

The oft-quoted statistic is that 80% of what is filed is never touched again. Well, it stands to reason that the statistic holds true for scanned items as well. If you’re holding onto a reference item that you’ve never consulted in six months (or years), isn’t it reasonable to consider that you’ll do just fine without it? Isn’t it even more reasonable to reflect that any generic advice not specific to you (like how to kill aphids, bake better sugar cookie recipes or do a perfect ab crunch) will be easier to find via a search engine without filling up your hard drive?

If you’re certain that what you’re scanning will be essential to find again, and that the OCR tagging and keywords are more likely to pinpoint the reference items you’re seeking than your own personal filing inclinations, then scan away. But when it comes to personal documentation (academic transcripts, legal documents, tax records), be cautious.

In late 2008, a number of professional organizers (including Paper Doll) were in attendance on an IRS teleclass regarding recordkeeping, and we were disappointed to find that the IRS has vague policies regarding the acceptance of scanned documents. A particular “subsection 11.01” of the tax code was referenced, stating that keeping electronic records does not release one from the requirements to keep paper records, and IRS Publication 552 on Recordkeeping for Individuals states:

If you use a computerized system, you must be able to produce legible records of the information needed to determine your correct tax liability. In addition to your computerized records, you must keep proof of payment, receipts and other documents to prove the amounts shown on your tax return.

Harrumph! 

• Paperless Statements, Online Billpay and Automated Drafts

Handling your money matters online can be a great way to gain control of your finances. You don’t need to pay postage, keep track of the return envelopes associated with your bills or give yourself as much lead time to make sure paper checks arrive on time. However, going high tech still requires as much diligence as paying paper bills. You must check your email frequently (preferably daily) and you maintain a system wherein you know when your bills are due, make sure you set up your payments to arrive by their due dates, and monitor your balances to make sure you don’t end up in an overdraft situation (especially if autodraft bill amounts vary widely, like utility bills during a protracted cold snap).

Not all online bill-pay systems are equal. What you don’t want to do is have to visit the web site for one lender/vendor/utility, log in with a password for that site, and set up one payment…and then have to move on to the next site for the next account. Instead, opt for online bill-pay service associated with your bank–provided that your bank provides online bill-pay service for free and a system that is both easy to use and guaranteed to cover fees if they fail to deliver payment as specified.

5. Develop a system for dealing with paper as it arrives. If going by your gut instincts worked, you’d already be organized, right? Having a system and always doing it the same way may not bring a lot of entertainment or novelty to your paper management, but is that really where you’re seeking your diversions?

We’ve talked about some of these things before, and will discuss them in detail in future posts, but the bare basics of paper management are:

—Gather incoming papers in one place, whether it’s mail, restaurant menu flyers, notices sent home from school or phone messages semi-scribbled by a family member.

—Develop a daily ritual for handling your paper, whether it’s right after you’ve gotten the kids off to school or as a way to wind down after dinner. Pick a time when you have a reasonable amount of mental energy, and set an alarm on the computer or cell phone to remind you until it becomes a habit. Ten minutes should suffice to know what can be tossed vs. what needs to be handled ASAP, and to schedule the tasks. Then, once a week, handle the filing, paying of bills and more in-depth reading.

—Have the essential tools for processing your paper. Paper Doll recommends an in-tray to gather for incoming paper, a tickler file (for handling action papers), a file cabinet or file crate (for storing reference papers), and a mobile bill-paying station (a basket or tray with a calculator, stamps, envelopes, return address labels and a check register) if you still pay any of your bills “old school”.