Filing... finally done

For the month of January OrgJunkie had a challenge on filing systems (what ever system you may have). Not only did she have a challenge but posted great information throughout the month on how to organize them! You should definitely check her out!

Well I have a binder of important stuff - that truthfully I hardly ever open, and I also have the filing cabinet by the desk that was overflowing and I just didn't know what to do.  I scan things into the computer but even that is a mess (a digital mess). Then there is the issue of was it scanned already or wasn't it? So... my solution will be to keep a copy of any paper bills we receive until the end of the year and then scan the whole year at one time (they will then all be the same PDF file and easier to label and find).

So... what did I do then? Well I went to a garage sale, I know I shouldn't be going to garage sales - just more "stuff" to bring home, but this time it paid off. I found a 4 drawer filing cabinet that works great- no dings etc. for only $8!!!!  What a deal that was. So I put that in the "office" and then kept the small 2 drawer by the desk.

The floor the right of me is constantly full of papers, as it was yesterday morning:

or maybe as it was at the beginning of the month (which does look more organized than the mess above). Believe it or not it was picked up in between then!

The filing cabinet in the office looked like this before:

Not to bad -- but not really organized - I wasn't really sure what I would find in the folders - even though they were labeled!

What do they look like now?

And the bottom drawer (which I didn't even take a picture of before)

Not that exciting -- just the stuff that needs to be shredded now that I cleaned things out.

Now the other filing cabinet has everything in there but not super organized yet - but at least everything is in the correct drawer!

 

The top is empty - I will be putting something there but for now nothing. The binder on top has some of my FHE lessons in it.

 

Then the bottom of this one needs to get organized as well. This one will have all of our manuals for things around the house with their receipt. This is a project in and of itself as I also have a big box in the garage - of which half we probably do not even own anymore!

 

So in the end -- not only did I clean out the filing cabinet by the desk I emptied the purple container (had all my FHE, primary lessons etc in there) but also emptied the clear plastic one -- it had new manuals since we moved (what is in the drawer now).

So not only did I get the cabinets cleaned out I got this done as well...

What is all this you might ask? Our tax papers all in one spot - I have since straightened it all up but that was right after. I think we have everything we need to get our taxes done. Although California has no money and are only giving out IOU's!!

Anyway THANK YOU OrgJunkie for this Monthly Round-Up! You made me get this done ... I am such a procrastinator as most of this was done today, I did start on Tuesday.  Next month her focus will be on Recipes - as those of you who follow my blog I did those in December -- but I never did get around to putting in the new tabs so that will be my project for the month - along with organizing my files in the computer and on allrecipes.com.

This is also my Tackle it Tuesday for the Week so see what others tackle each week at 5MinutesforMom.