Organizing the Paper Clutter + Bribing the Kids to Help

We have way too much paper clutter.  I have a large accordion file that I just stuff important papers in, a basket overflowing with paper that needs to be shredded, and another basket of important papers that are more recent.

Yesterday morning I started our taxes online.  I actually love tax time but that's mostly because we always get a large return.  I needed to find the insurance policy for the rental condo for our taxes which started me digging through the accordion file.  This got me in an organizing mood.

2 hours later - the paperwork in the file is now organized by year, the basket of shreddables is half empty and my basket of recent important papers is nearly empty having filed most of these items in the accordion file.

I hate shredding.  Solution: Told both of the girls that I would pay them $1 each to shred.  They jumped on the chance and filled 3 containers full of shredded paper.  All together we ended up with a full trash bag of paper trash.