If you wish to reduce flyers, promotions and 'householders', it is effective to tape a note in a bolded, 18 font to your mailbox 'No Unaddressed Mail.'

Great thread Chef! Lots of good ideas here. I am on the warpath with paper the last two weeks, and I intend to keep going.

My file cabinet has been purged, my bookcase also.

My biggest problem is recipes. I will have to go through them again and I am going to count how many I throw out. I got this habit from Mom, but I do try a lot of them on a regular basis.

I have tried using the computer to store them, but I found I need it right in front of me, don't think I looked at the recipe computer file more than twice in a year.

Just completed back taxes and tossed loads of papers and receipts. It feels so good to get this stuff OUT.

Of course, staying current on bills, etc. keeps the piles down. I've been having a hard time lately and am unable to address a lot of things to keep current, so the piles grow.

My big thing right now is the sheer volumes of paperwork involved in my job as a teacher. I am thinking of ways to deal with it in a more organized way. I know its the 2nd of May and we only have 8 weeks of school left but I am really starting to consider how to get off to a better start next year right from the start. I am going to start a thread about organizing for teachers.

Seems like Simplicity and I are in agreement on a lot of things. I try to limit the paper (throw away junkmail, only keep this week's store flier and discard last week's when the new one arrives), but I don't believe in being paperless.

Seems like every time I've tried the paperless route, THAT has caused more stress than filing the paper. I remember 2008 taxes. Tired, new baby, all I needed was one figure off of the electronic pay stub, and it took me TWO - yes, TWO (2) - hours to get the one number that I needed. Dial-up plus a website that's sluggish even on the campus's broadband. (What REALLY annoys me is the places that are going all electronic and just assume everyone lives in town with high-speed internet). There have been other times when I needed to do something online and couldn't get to the site. The ONE AND ONLY time I tried an e-billpay, the website crashed, but I'd already gotten a confirmation screen so thought it went through, but apparently it never did and I spent probably 10x the amount of time on the phone trying to straighten everything out and get rid of all of the late charges that I would have just writing the check and putting a stamp on the envelope.

Then there's my friend whose husband went all paperless for their bills. He died suddenly, in her arms, age 30, of a hidden heart defect. Here she is, trying to make funeral arrangements, for a funeral in a different state no less (he died in MI, they lived in OH, but she was having him buried in his hometown in IN for the sake of his family), and she can't access a lot of the websites to make the e-transactions.

I don't like auto-withdrawals for paying bills, either, because it's harder to settle a dispute - once the company has the money, they're not terribly motivated to straighten things out.

We get our bank statements online, but I print them out. It's much easier to reconcile them in Quicken when I'm not flipping back and forth between windows.

I do get the newspaper - DH likes to read it, I like the coupons - but we're very strict about recycling on a daily basis.

I also have an email account dedicated to tons of websites. Do I read 90%? No, but the other 10% have coupons and other things I do want. I only keep the most recent, or those with coupons that haven't yet expired.

I'm mixed about the manuals. Nice to save the paper, but it seems I need the manual when I can't be next to a computer, which kinda defeats the purpose. Right now, if it comes with one, I file it in the cabinet. We reference them often enough to make it worth doing so.

I think the idea is to control paper and not let it control you, but everything in moderation. Electronic isn't always the best answer, either. (Plus reference other threads on the theme of hard drives full of decades' worth of files no one ever deletes - my boss once told me, "I never delete anything - electronic storage is cheap." Another friend operates under the same premise; it's quicker to buy another external HD than take the time to delete files. I don't think that's any better than the paper clutter!

Interesting topic!

I used to have a boss who had stuff on the office computer - whcih I was sternly told NOT TO DELETE - from 1998. This is too much. I guess she did that because all the paper files in the office, except for a couple of my file drawers, were so tightly stuffed that no more hard copies would fit - a pack rat, par excellence. She didn't understand that with so much old material, it was harder to even find the new.

I just got the latest church newsletter, and guess what the main topic was? Encouraging parishioners to have electronic withdrawals from their checking accounts for their church giving! The minister, whom I e-mailed about the pro's and con's of this idea, is all for it. She assured me that if the church decides this doesn't work, the system can be stopped at any time with no penalty. It remains to be seen whether such an arrangement will actually bring in more money, after some fees are paid. I plan to keep writing checks. (The only electronic charitable withdrawal I currently have is my monthly contribution to Save the Children, and they know that it has to be on the exact same day each month, so that I will know the money is coming out at a specific time, and update my checkbook accordingly.) Because of the numerous special offerings in addition to regular ones, with dates and amounts varying, I don't want to get embroiled in all of that.

I like checks, too, because it's easier to track them. One can look for a check number instead of rummaging among electronic numbers that are often cryptic.

This IS a great thread!!

I live on the computer, but I am very much a paper person. :S So I compromise. I TRY to make a notebook for recurring things, so I don't have too many papers floating around and I know where to find it later. I can find cute spiral notebooks for cheap at dollar stores and Micheals.

My old printer died a couple months ago (it came free with our digital camera, so no worries) and I replaced it with a Kodak brand... they advertise themselves as the cheapest ink in the industry and there is a HUGE difference. One of each ink for my old printer was around $60.00, now it's $28.00

I print a fair bit of stuff. I have a recipe software program and recipes from work, so I rarely save any from magazines. I only get two magazines and one was a freebie from a code in a cereal box. I'm planning on keeping 2 years worth of Real Simple and then stopping my subscription. Seriously - with those types of magazines they don't have that many NEW ideas; when I want Christmas stuff, I'll pull the November and December issues.

I've also been ripping out the pages that are front and back ads and tossing them as I go since I'm planning on keeping the magazines... for most people, I suggest the opposite: tear out the FEW pages you want to keep and toss the magazine.

Junk mail doesn't survive very long, usually I don't put it down (other than maybe to take off my shoes) before it goes straight in the recycle.

For store flyers, I have two baskets that nest. The latest weeks' flyers are in the top basket and the week before's in in the bottom basket. When the new one comes in, I dump the oldest weeks' basket into the recycle, look at a couple flyers cut a few coupons, and put the new flyers in the empty basket on top of the other basket. I rarely have to go back looking for something and I don't have to check all the dates when the new ones come in to see if I can toss the old ones or if they're still good for two days.

Two words for you: Binder Clips! I love binder clips! I use various sizes mostly the two smallest sizes, but I have bigger ones too. The months' receipts get clipped together for the budget review, I can make a 'book' temporarily. Sometimes I use different colours and colour-code stuff (did that a lot in teacher's college)

RaymondValerie, I was running low on ink last week, and I had tons to print for the accountant. I had to run to Staples, my printer said "ink low" and one cartridge was almost $30. I can order NINE cartridges in a combo pack for that price on various discount ink websites.

I never buy OEM ink, but this was an emergency.
So far I haven't run out of ink, I placed my order, and hopefully my nine pack will come and I can return this one to Staples.

I am going through all the emails I am gettin and am slowly but surely deleting the ones that I no longer want to subscribe to. I wish I were better at the paper, but its just a work in progress.

I am adding in the cd category right now with the new biz as I get 8 trining and motivational cds per month and one book. Really good stuff that I can share with others as it applies to all walks of life, so that it a good thing.

Need to go through the binder in the closet with all the old manuals as I know that I no longer own a lot of the items for which I still have the manuals.....tells you how often we really use them ....doesn't it.

Re Ink: if ou can get nine cartridges for $30, there's likely no better deal anywhere. I have mine refilled via a certain company (are we allowed to post the name?), which pays the postage both ways, and charges less than half of what a cartridge would cost in a store.

I don't think it's necessary to print out all e-mails or other documents. I print as few as I can get away with: I have to have a reason to print something out. I print less and less, to save trees and, yes, ink.

RE:ink, I usually pay about $6 per cartridge, this was a special promotion, so I grabbed it. Also, I bring the empty cartridges to an office super store, and they give me $3 for each empty one.

I went through the large pile of recipes I printed, only tossed one!! Guess I have to go round two on the pile again.