It's all to easy to drown in paperwork, but some stuff you have to keep - just not for ever. So here is a list of how long you need to keep specific types of document.
- Bank statements - One year.
- Bills - One year
- Payslips - one year (until your next P60 arrives)
- P60/P45 - Indefinitely
- Mortgage documents - Indefinitely
- Insurance agreements - While policy is active and until any switch to a new provider is complete.
- Investment and pension documents - Indefinitely
- Car servicing, repair bills and MOTs - Keep until you sell the car
For any papers you absolutely must keep, file in an A-Z concertina file, or filing drawer. For everything else, go digital.
- Opt to receive paperless bills and view them online.
- Sign up to online banking: 24/7 access should make it easier to monitor spending. For security reasons, only log into your account on your home computer or your own personal electronic devices and make sure you sign out every time.
- Upload scans of remaining documents to your computer.
- Be sure to back up your computer files on to a separate hard drive. Free online storage service Dropbox lets users store up to 2GB worth of files. Google's Cloud Platform and Apple's i-Cloud also let users save files to their online storage facility.
- Before you throw out old financial documents, shred any that contain sensitive financial details, account numbers and contact information.
