Do you go paperless?

[Montecfo]

Just to further comment: even though I am mostly a paper person, I do not feel the need to keep most bills more than a year or so. If you use quicken a lot of the details are there electronically.

Having said that, I do have every bank statement and tax return I have ever filed. And supporting records on the taxes. Also have paper or electronic records of every investment statement ever received. Overkill i admit. Would definitely destroy some of downsizing.

 

[FireFool]

I still prefer paper. It makes logging my expenses into my spreadsheet easier rather than having to log in to multiple websites to obtain the information. Likewise for my banking and credit card statements, though for those I also have electronic access. I don't see me changing this anytime soon.

Ditto for me - I like to have the prompt of the incoming paper mail to do a review and update my checking account register for the upcoming payment Everything I can I have on autopay, but I still want the paper statements. Only my electric company required paperless to do autopay against a CC - I see that charge on my CC''s paper statement.

There's just too many companies that overmarket via e-mail (some almost daily) that their bill would just get lost within all the other junk they send.

 

[CaptTom]

Ditto for me - I like to have the prompt of the incoming paper mail to do a review and update my checking account register for the upcoming payment Everything I can I have on autopay, but I still want the paper statements. Only my electric company required paperless to do autopay against a CC - I see that charge on my CC''s paper statement.

There's just too many companies that overmarket via e-mail (some almost daily) that their bill would just get lost within all the other junk they send.

Interesting perspective. I do exactly the same thing but with a paperless process. I only get one e-mail a month from most accounts, or if they send junk it's pretty easy to distinguish by the subject.

When I see the e-mail about "payment due" or "statement available" I log on to the appropriate site (I do NOT click a link in any e-mail!) and download the statement or verify the payment amount.

While I'm in there, I review transactions and any other information that needs to be reviewed.

Then I update the payment in MS Money and reconcile the account if necessary. If there's an recurring payment set up I mark it paid.

The whole thing works pretty smoothly, and it forces me to be 100% aware of and involved with each account, with the minimum of effort. I wouldn't want things any more automated than this.

 

[Katsmeow]

Ditto for me - I like to have the prompt of the incoming paper mail to do a review and update my checking account register for the upcoming payment Everything I can I have on autopay, but I still want the paper statements. Only my electric company required paperless to do autopay against a CC - I see that charge on my CC''s paper statement.

There's just too many companies that overmarket via e-mail (some almost daily) that their bill would just get lost within all the other junk they send.

Often you can set a filter in your email program so that the valuable stuff goes to one place and the ads to another. I use GMAIL and I have filters that do this. You can also often unsubscribe to the marketing stuff and I do that as well to cut down on it.