I have just moved and ended up with five dish drainers. (Don't ask.) So, I was gathering them up to donate and thought of a way to keep a second one in the bedroom's office.
You can use the separations for binders (1 inch is best), large envelopes, or portfolios. The slant is perfect, and you can keep different sizes with the larger in back.
You can also keep cookbooks, owners manuals, index cards, tablets or envelopes in there, too. N-JOY!
By Sandi/Poor But Proud from Salem, OR
My 6 year old DD thinks she needs to keep every scrap of paper that the school sends home. How can I get her to realize that this is way too much to keep and help her minimize her paper stack? I have explained to her that it is way too much to collect, and we just don't have the room. We live in a small 2 bedroom apartment on an extremely tight budget and cannot afford to buy storage containers for her to keep the stuff in. I did give her a big wicker basket to put papers in and this is starting to overflow. Sorry this is so long.
My son is the same way. I keep an accordion folder with the months of the year on my desk. I put ALL of his papers in it by month. At the end of the semester, I go through them with him and we decide which ones to keep longer.
My grand daughter lives with her mom in a small one bedroom apartment & had the same problem (saving every paper she did) So I went to the dollar store & bought some colorful plastic clothes pins & I took 2 pushpins & some yarn (or rope). I hung about 4 feet of yarn horizontally between the 2 pushpins on the wall. To make a sort of "clothes line". We hung her pictures on the "line" with colorful plastic clothes-pins.
This is her very own art display & it takes up no room at all because it just hangs on the wall next to her bed & will only hold 5 or so pictures. When you make the "art line" you'll need to tell her that for every picture she hangs up, she has to take one down. (because of the obvious lack of room on the line) If you like you can make a two tiered clothes line.... (one on top of the other) which will hold more.
As far as the artwork in the basket. You might buy a pretty folder with her name on it or use a fancy box, & decide on a number, say 30 for example, & when she gets over 30, she needs to decide which one to get rid of to be able to add a new one to the bunch. If you do this at the same time you hand up the "art-line" she will know you are so proud of her work, you want to display it & maybe she will be more receptive to letting go of the rest. Tell her if she want's to use the art-line, the rule is: She HAS to get rid of most of the work in her overflowing basket & decide on a more manageable number of papers to keep.
* I was in the very same situation myself, way back when... I lived in a super-tiny place & every time, I brought home another dress or outfit from the thrift store, my boyfriend would highly encourage me to give another outfit away.... I didn't like it, but it sure worked!
One more idea is to get a large piece of poster board & make a collage of her favorite older work. This way she can cut up pieces of her work into fun shapes & glue them to the poster board. Well... at least that's one way to get her to let go of her proud accomplishments & display them at the same time.
I have been saving my daughters school papers since she started preschool at age 3 and she is now 8. I make sure the papers are dated and punch holes in them and then place them in a three ring binder. For larger art projects or those items you can't put in a binder I put them in a box/plastic container that fits under the bed.
Protect your important documents (insurance info, car titles, warranties, etc.) by placing them is a zip lock bag in your freezer. Should a fire occur, they will not be burned.
For the vintage little girl in all of us, use your old, err I mean, vintage open backed multi-storied doll house as a paper organizer on your desk. Looks cute and each "room" can be labeled or decorated accordingly.
I can't find a file labeling system that works for me. I can't find my important papers when needed. Does anyone have any filing system ideas for me?
First of all, try to really determine what "important" is. I think all of us keep a lot more than we really need. For insurance papers (i.e. doctor visits and follow-up insurance statements) I have a folder for each person in the family. We don't go that often, but if there is a problem or discrepancy on a statement, I have each particular illness or check-up filed together.
Trudy Powell
Label your folders like the Yellow Pages: Insurance, Auto; Insurance, Home; Insurance, Medical; etc. that way all the insurance files are together, all the credit card statements, and utilities are filed by each other.
I use 3-ring binders for filing instead of file folders. It's too easy to take a folder out and forget to put it back! I have a binder for each of my 3 teenagers (for school information, driver's training, etc.) I also have one for insurance, pets, banking, automobiles, bill paying, and medical records. I use tabs to label sections within the binder; e.g., one tab for each car, etc. I have these binders on a shelf in the room where I pay the bills. I also have an accordion-type folder where I file the monthly paperwork after paying bills like gas, electric and cable, one month in each slot. There's a special slot for tax-related receipts so those are handy when tax-time comes around. I keep mortgage and car loan paperwork in the bill-paying binder.
I file our household papers the same way I file the company books. Bills that are reacuring always have their own folder and are labeled accordingly ei. Phone, gas, power ect. Have a file at the back for misc. bills that you still need to keep but don't have a place for them. All the monthly bills are at the front of the filing cabinet and I have the income tax, paystubs, ROE's at the back(because they are important). Remember you always file with the newest bill at the front. If you don's have a filing cabinet you can always use an accordian file.
I have a 3 ring binder for each of us (my husband and I) to organize our financial information and I also have a binder for joint financial information.
When I find binders at thrift stores, I pick them up. I find that putting the clear pages in that I have split the long way and sealed with tape over the tops, makes a nice filing system.
If you have access to a scanner, scan and file on disk all your important papers, such as birth certificates and medical documents that you would be hard pressed to reproduce in a short time.
If you are involved in many different kinds of organizations or work committees, sometimes it is helpful to have a different briefcase for each function.
I have a lot of papers and they are driving me crazy! I am looking for a system where I can scan old bills, papers, etc. into, that would organize as well. Any suggestions? I am looking for the least expensive method. My husband said that our scanner would take way too long.
Thank you!
By Deirdre from Colorado Springs, CO
Well the first thing I thought of when I read you scanner was the NeatDesk Organiser I've seen advertised on TV www.usatoday.com/
Then I read an article that said for the money you are better off with the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 lawyerist.com/
Another reslut in my search found a site that talked about 3 ways to organize papers and had additional links, I'll let you read all about it financialsoft.about.com/
Tips for storing important papers. Post your ideas.
Need a place to store important papers? Take a binder and put in page protectors. Just slide your papers into the page protectors. You can get dividers and have separate sections for certain items.
ie: bills, pay stubs etc.
By Tori
With all the trouble we are having with weather created disasters, we need to make sure we have records of importance in a few safe places. Security boxes and locked freezers work well.
Turn the pages over (top to bottom) and then staple at the Top-Right corner. Now when you are going through stacks of multipage packets, you will not cut your fingertips on the curved edges of the staple.
