What Documents to Keep and How to Store Them
Purchasing a home, whether new or new to you, comes with a deluge of paperwork. From the minute you make that offer to closing day, many important papers are created. There are the closing statement, warranty deed, home warranty, and appliance warranties just to name a few. Let's discuss what documents to store, how to store them, and how to dispose of them.
When storing documents we need to make sure they are easily accessible, safe from theft or damage, and organized. Documents can be stored digitally on your personal computer, but this is not the best solution or should not be the only place to store them. A backup is needed in case something happens to your.computer. Hard drives and flash drives offer more protection, but those should be stored in a safe. Another solution, probably the best case scenario, is to store your documents in a secure cloud-based storage.
Storing documents digitally is a great way to decrease clutter; however, many original documents should be kept in their paper form. For those you need to decide how best to keep them so that they are accessible and protected. These papers should be stored in a safe place. For example, a plastic file box or file cabinet. Store them in an area of your home where it is easy to get to and protected from flooding or other elements. There are fireproof file cabinets that will further protect them. Also, some of your most important documents should be stored in a fireproof safe or a safety deposit box in a bank.
Organizing document files can be a personal choice. Many may organize chronologically or alphabetically. However, organizing by subject is a practical way; especially if you have a lot of files. You could have a file box for your personal, banking, and property documents as well as others. These files could be color coded to make them easy to find. The more specific your files are, the easier it will be to find something. It is also good to keep an index of your files, the color, and where to find them.
What documents do you store and save? Some documents need to be kept forever. Those would be the ones related to personal events in your life. Birth certificates, death certificates, military records, passports and social security cards are some of the important documents that need to be kept in the original form. Titles, property deeds, insurance policies, stock certificates, and warranty documents also should be kept.
Documents related to tax returns should be kept for at least 7 years. Keep those tax returns as well as the statements that support those returns. Keep receipts for home remodels for as long as you own the home. These may come in handy should you sell your home.
Bank and credit card statements that are non tax related may be kept for a year. You do not need to keep receipts for purchases over a year unless they are under warranty. Most banks and credit card companies have electronic statements so there is no need to keep the paper ones. You could probably opt out of paper statements from these companies. Basically you only need to keep receipts for products under warranty, for tax returns, and for insurance claims.
So how do you toss the unnecessary paperwork? Carefully and safely! If the documents have any of your important information on them such as full name, birthdate, social security number, account numbers, routing numbers, and numerous other sensitive information; then, these documents should be shredded, not simply tossed in the trash. You can buy a small home paper shredder or contract a shredding company to do it for you. Going to a little effort up front may save you a lot of stress by preventing stolen identities.
At Dwelly you can store an electronic version of your important documents in a secure way that is accessible anytime. With Dwelly you can access your important documents from the secured application, even on your mobile device. Additionally with the Dwelly App you can easily share these documents with others within your households and key professionals who need access to these documents. Dwelly stores your documents and data with security at the forefront of everything that we build. Your household's privacy is extremely important to Dwelly so we take many steps to protect that privacy.
