Discussion: I hear ya

I've started doing the same with things - all of the "I might need this some day" stuff that I've totally forgotten I have.

The local bank periodically provides free shredding. Pretty sure I am the best customer for that service, trying to get rid of both personal and work related stuff years out of date.

Found my tax returns back to 1978...I was 20.

Yes, more and more places provide free shredding these days. I can take stuff to the city incinerator as well.

Awesome! I'm impressed you still had them.

Part of my compulsive/addictive nature...I actually ordered the years I was missing to fill in the gaps. At least that wasn't as expensive as filling in the gaps in my stamp collection. I think I'll start taking stamps to the post office and slapping them on packages I mail.

You win. I think the oldest returns I took to the shredder this time were from 1990.

I'll try to remember to look in my file box tonight, I suspect I may have returns back to the 1970s.

I keep 10 years only, each in a large envelope (thank you O). At the start of the filing process I pull out the oldest, cross out the year to add the new one, pull out the return and backup to be shredded and then start afresh.

When we emptied my parents house of 70 years, the dumpster got pay stubs from 1938, Dad's first job, amongst many other archive worthy things. We can only keep so much and we try to reduce the effort our kids will have to go through perhaps some time in the future.

I don't keep any tax returns anymore, since I do them with tax software and file electronically.

I do them with software also, but having paper is nice. Electronics can so easily disappear.

So, the oldest return I have is 1980, and for '82-'86 I have only the W-2, and for '84 not even that (maybe I had no income in 1984?). Eleven of them are collector's items, because they have PG's autograph.

Should I have an untimely demise, it won't be such a big problem for whoever disposes of my estate, because it's all well organized. No need to go through anything, they can just toss the contents and keep the nice plastic storage box.