Tags
bills, file, filing, filing cabinet, folders, insurance, management, Organization, organized, papers, tax
Ok, I know I keep complaining about how small my apartment is, so I won’t bring it up here once again, but I need to point out how hard it is to be organized when what you cruelly lack most is space…
This is the spare room when we have our desk, my vanity and where my fiance has his clothes. Please don’t mind the chairs, this is our brand new dining room set we are super proud of, we don’t want to unwrap it until we move.
We generally file our important paper… everywhere, I can’t even take a picture for you, we have banking information in 2-3 locations, insurance policies, I hope to find them and bills… since I have a tendency to lose paper, I pay them as soon as they enter the mailbox, this way I am sure I won’t be late. You can understand we need something better… With shame, I must admit that we indeed have a filing cabinet! Filled randomly with craft supplies and junk…
So, the first part of this challenge will be to find a place to organize my craft supplies. I have the perfect place in the office. I have a bookcase, filled with books I will move to the living room and I intend to relocate my craft supplies to this bookshelf. With a plastic organizer with drawers, I think we’ll be good to go!
The first drawer contains all the craft tools I have (glue gun, punch, glue stick…), the second one is for the stamps and stickers and the last one is dedicated to Washi tape. I thought I would organize the bookshelf first and then the papers, but then, I realized that some of the papers were in that bookshelf and needed to be organized in the first place, so I started my quest…
They say it needs to get worst in order to get better, I think we are in the worst part now…
I worked for about 3h and I haven’t finished yet. However, I like how neat it already looks! I took my inspiration from Toni’s first cabinet however, since she is in the US, her categories are slightly different than mines.
Here is the on going process. At home, I already had the purple inside file folders. I went to Staples and purchased the grey hanging folders along with colored tabs My subcategories are pretty straightforward, my boyfriend and myself have our own purple folder in the main grey categories. The purple folders are labeled in pink for mines and in blue for his. For the shared subcategories (such as joint account) those are labeled with a clear label.
Here are what my categories look like so far
Red Tabs
Bank XXX
Checking (pink)
Saving (pink)
Joint (clear)
Saving (clear)
Bank YYY
Checking (blue)
Saving (blue)
1 folder per credit card
REER
1 pink and 1 blue
Retirement
1 pink and 1 blue
Employment
1 pink and 1 blue
Yellow tabs
House Insurance
Car Insurance
1 pink and 1 blue
Apartment Insurance
Med. Insurance
1 pink and 1 blue
Life Insurance
1 pink and 1 blue
Green tabs
Apartment
House
Car 1
Car 2
Clear tabs
Tax 2017
1 pink and 1 blue
Tax 2016
1 pink and 1 blue
Tax 2015
…
So far this is the longest challenge, I have been working for 3 hours straight and it’s far from complete. However, with the pantry, I must say this is the challenge I am the most proud of. I’ll be posting the final result in the next few days… Til then, why don’t you start your own? Speaking of this at work had me aware that most of us are way too disorganized when it comes to papers.
