Losing the "Paper War"

There are so many things I want to spend my time on, the trouble I’m having is eliminating as many of the things I don’t want to spend my time on as possible.  If you’ve been reading here for awhile, you know that I have a super abundance of hobbies and time consuming activities that I enjoy.  Just doing this daily blog and related photography consumes a large part of my non-work time!  I’m guessing that since you are reading this, your vote would be that I don’t reduce the time I spend on these particular activities!  So clearly something else has to go.

 

Since I'm also not able to eliminate my time-consuming job, one area that I have attacked with a vengeance is the amount of effort I spend on bills and paperwork.  These are two things I despise!  Actually, anything financial, I despise, yet paperwork and just handling paper still seems to consume a lot of my time.  So, I’ve declared war on handling paper.

 

I think I am losing the battle.

 

Don’t get me wrong, over the years, I feel like I have made tremendous strides in these areas.  The first major inroad I made in this war was bill-paying using Checkfree and Quicken software.  I was already using Quicken to budget and track expenses and spending trends, and adding Checkfree made it possible to track an expense and pay it at the same time!  I even set up automatic payments for recurring expenses.  It was incredible!

 

This continued for many years, and then all the utilities, cable, phone, etc. began offering automatic payments that would withdraw funds from the account of your choosing on the due date.  I started signing up for these, as well.  It was more incredible!

 

I still had a bunch of financial paperwork to sift through, though.  The next step was eliminating the bill paper all-together, going with paperless statements (online) and automatic payments.  As a result, bill-paying has nearly become a thing of the past.  This is beyond incredible!  As a side benefit, this step also eliminated nearly 100% of the bill paperwork and envelopes clogging my workspace.

 

Somehow, I still had piles of paper stuff to deal with, though.

 

So, I did all the steps it takes to reduce or eliminate junk mail.  I’ve eliminated credit card offers (which used to get 2-3 a DAY), phone switch offers, mortgage offers, etc. and only get the occasional catalog in the mail.

 

Still the paper pile grows.  I think I’ve even heard it growl once or twice.  It scares me.  I don’t want to go down to my office late at night, anymore!

 

This year, our daughters’ school has even switched to just sending things either via email or posting on their website.  This should also help, but still the paper monster is taking over my desk. 

 

How is this possible?  Aren't we in the "paper-less" era?

 

How can I still be losing the paper war after all this effort?  I shudder to imagine what the problem would be like if I hadn’t been waging war on the Paper Monster all these years!

 

What are the next steps?  I think I need help from some paper elimination mercenary out there. What actions do you take to destroy the Paper Monster?

Comments

[Kathy G]

I hear you on the paper! Somehow we manage to take a filled-up a milk crate to the paper recycling bin every month.

We've signed up to eliminate junk mail, but still get most of our bills in paper form. DH just likes to have the paper trail. I've heard that if you have a problem with your bill, the electronic copy is sometimes not sufficient (however, we do pay online through the bank).

What kills me is the number of credit card solicitations we get in the mail...there are 5 of us that are "of age" for credit, so we get them in everyone's name. I've started shredding them and adding them to the compost pile.

[Bobbi's Book Nook]

I love paper - unfortunately I have trouble letting it go. I have several file cabinets filled with paper: stories, manuscripts, blog post (yes, I'm one of those people who prints of hard copy of each post!), book review, and other important paper.

However, in the past year, I am managing to dump the junk mail in the recycle box as soon as it comes into the house. Do I get points for that?!!