So I have this problem. I can’t seem to be able to throw papers away. Or throw…STUFF… away, really. It piles and piles and then I move the piles around and SAY I’m going to file it where it belongs…

You know the drill. Move the piles again. Until something important gets lost and I have to go through the piles to find it. And the piles, they are prodigious. Bills. Statements. Bills.

I burned out the motor on the shredder.

I cannot throw these documents in the trash. They have shred-worthy data on them. And I take the shreds and put them in the compost pile and then my next year’s garden will be nourished by a healthy helping of paranoia.

Except for the small problem of the shredder not working.

These things don’t need to be filed; I don’t keep records like I used to. I check my bank account daily, sometimes several times a day online. I’ve gone paperless everywhere I can, pay bills through the bank’s webpage and still the piles grow.

The icing on the cake? Oh, that comes in the form of the Stuff Mama left here for me to handle. Piles upon piles of paperwork with sensitive data on it. Tax returns from 1995 to 2007. Checking statements with cancelled checks. Book after book after book after book of check duplicates.

And then finally, the solution hit me.