Organize Your Records

Discover What Records to Keep, What Records to Discard, Where to Keep them and How to Organize Your Records for Safety , Convenience and Peace of Mind.

By Claudette E. Paäge, Paäge et Cie Personal Management Services, www.paageetcie.com, Cate Williams, Vice President of Financial Literacy, Money Management International, and Phyllis Searles, Organizing Anchorage, www.organizinganchorage.com

The importance of organizing, recording and retaining your vital documents cannot be overestimated.

Keeping good financial records can help you:

• Maintain a good credit standing
• Save money on taxes
• Provide a track record of your financial progress.

And good record retention can:

• Save you hours of anxious searching
• Help preserve peace and harmony for you and your family
• Make it much easier to cope with life’s next emergency

Click here to read what Cate Williams, Vice President of Financial Literacy, Money Management International has to say about keeping good financial records

But what exactly is good record retention?

We all know that there are some records we need to keep. But which ones? And for how long?

If we were to start keeping everything that “might” be important, it’s not hard to imagine ourselves soon living in a house or apartment littered with numerous tall stacks of paper stretching from the floor to the ceiling.

So what should you do?

The following are essential guidelines you can follow to quickly and easily decide what records to keep and what records to discard as well as how and where to store your important records.

What Records to Keep (and for how long)
– Keeping family records in a business-like manner saves time, trouble, money and frustration. Click here to discover what records you should keep, how you should keep them and for how long you should keep them.

What Records to Discard
– Today more than ever families and individuals are suffering from document overload. Click here to discover what records are OK to destroy so that you don’t find yourself awash in a sea of documents – as well as learn about a new law that may require you to shred important information or risk being fined or sued.

How to Organize Your Records
– Many records and papers can be kept in a home file for ready access, while others should be left with your attorney or placed in a safe-deposit box. Click here to learn more about “No Time Like Now – A Fifteen Minute Guide to Organizing Your Life” This booklet tells you where to keep specific papers as well as how to organize your records to ensure you are able to quickly and easily access information when you need it.