How I Went 99.9% Paperless At Home.

Reader Reggie sent in the following comment: “Hey David, if you get a chance, can you write a post about how you went paper-less on your bills. I receive a bunch of mail everyday, most of it from student loans and credit card offers, and I’m 1) sick of it 2) don’t like wasting paper. If you get a chance to post how you did it, I’d really like that and I think some of your readers might too.” Well, here’s to hoping that they do! I have gotten my home (where I also work) to the point of being just about entirely paper-free, save for a few doctor bills, 2 magazine subscriptions, tax returns, Netflix wrappers, and the occasional paper check that I get paid with. These are the only things that show up in my mailbox as of late, which is a far cry from the piles and piles of paperwork, credit card offers, and junk mail that I used to receive. Since there has been some interest from you guys, I figured I put together a few pointers to help you get started…

Stop Receiving Junk Mail

Junk mail accounts for over 40 million tons of paper waste in this country each year. To help lower the amount of waste and to reduce the amount of paper you have to deal with at home, make sure you sign up/register with each of the following services (all are free):

• Catalog Choice – Stop receiving catalogs from companies you would never buy anything from.
• DirectMail – Stop the junk mail and advertisements.
• OptOutPrescreen – Stop credit card offers.
• DMA Consumers – Another direct mail list to remove yourself from.
• Do Not Mail – Petition site to create a national Do Not Mail registry.

Stop Receiving Blank Checks From Your Credit Cards

Does your credit card company send you about 10 blank checks a month, so you have the privilege of accessing your credit at an even more exorbitant interest rate? Mine did too, for a long time. I finally called each of them and told them to stop sending me the checks… and sure enough, they stopped! Not only are they a waste of paper, but they can also lead to someone else writing themselves a check from your account if your mail is ever stolen. Just call up and ask they don’t send any more of them.

Buy A Scanner

If you don’t have one already, you are going to want to invest in one. It needn’t be expensive or fancy, but you will want something to get the paper you no longer want (but need to keep) into a digital format. My printer is one of those All In One units from HP and it works fine. But if you just need a scanner, I have heard good things about this simple one from Doxie. The best part about it? It works with my next recommendation for getting those digital files organized…

Get Evernote

I wrote a full length post about Evernote and how it has changed how I store and access documents on my computer, and I still cannot recommend it enough to anyone who will listen. Seriously, you need to check it out. The basic version is free, and it does exactly what it says it does – Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Capture everything now so you will be able to find it all later. Things to capture: Tasks and to-dos, Notes and research, Web pages, Whiteboards, Business cards, Scribbles, Snapshots, Wine labels, and even Twitter messages. And then find them all any time across all the computers and devices you use. Evernote is basically my searchable “in-computer” digital file cabinet that allows me to file away important papers that I otherwise would have to store physical copies of.

Start Using The Cloud

Services like Google Docs and Dropbox (another favorite of mine) allow you to store your documents online, where they are accessible from anywhere. This actually encourages you to go paperless, because when was the last time you could access something in your physical file cabinet when you were 1,000 miles away?

Sign Up For Online Bill Access And Payment

Not a single bill for my house actually comes to my mailbox. All bills, from AT&T to Comcast to the electric company, gets delivered to my Gmail inbox. From there I can read it (which I rarely do), trash it, or file it away in Gmail. This has significantly cut back on the amount of paper mail that I receive, and combining it with automatic payment simplifies things even more. All my bills, other than my rent, get charged automatically to my Amtrak Rewards credit card. I never miss a payment, I never write a check, I never worry about due dates when I go on vacation. It’s all on auto-pilot.

Don’t Print – PDF It.

Instead of automatically printing out stuff you want to keep, why not just create a PDF and digitally file it away in Evernote? Mac users have this ability built right into their printer menu, but Windows users need an extra bit of software, I believe. I don’t use Windows machines, so I don’t know what it is – anyone want to help out here?

Back It All Up. Seriously.

I have 2 backups of my entire computer – one local one here at home done every hour with Time Machine, and an online one that is done once a day. I use BackBlaze for my online backups, and it costs only $5 a month. It’s a small price to pay for piece of mind. A very good friend of mine had both his “in-machine” hard drive AND his external drive go bad on the same day, so it was a good thing he also used an online backup service or he would have lost everything. Sure, the chances of that happening are slim-to-none, but if you don’t have an offsite backup, a fire or flood at your home could wipe out all your info too. Better safe than sorry.

As I mentioned the other day, I do have a one drawer file cabinet in my house where newer tax documents and health records are still kept in their physical form. Eventually, they too will be scanned and digitized, but for now I am OK with them being in the cabinet. Scanning and filing are important, but the single most important and first thing you should do if you want to go paperless is to reduce the amount of paper coming into your home. Stop the junk mail, catalogs, credit card offers, and your household bills, and then you can start working on organizing the paper already being kept at home. Good luck!

Where Do You Keep All Your Stuff? Behind Door Number 2?

This seems to be the question I get asked the most by readers – “Where do you keep your paperwork, etc?” – when I show pictures of what my place looks like. In fact, just last week two readers left the following comments:

“I love the use of space and the uncluttered feel of it all. But how do you handle files? Legal docs, tax records, etc? Is everything digital or do you have it stashed behind door #2?”

“Also, your desk doesn’t have any drawers – where do you keep your bills, your checkbook, your important papers (insurance, etc)?”

While it is true that my desk doesn’t have drawers, I do in fact have a filing cabinet behind door #2. It’s a single drawer unit that I have had for years, and I keep it in my closet. Here, have a look:

That’s my hall closet, which contains the above mentioned filing cabinet, my printer, my Dyson vacuum cleaner, and my jackets. Since I rarely ever print anything anymore, I no longer keep my printer hooked up to my computer, instead choosing to keep it out of site in the closet. The filing cabinet has a drawer on the top, which holds my pens, tape, check book, etc., while the file drawer holds any important papers that I haven’t converted to digital format yet. (Or that I can’t, like the last few years tax returns) But if that filing cabinet gets too full and nothing new will fit, then I know it is time to start scanning into the computer again to make room for newer items. I wrote an article last year outlining the documents you need to keep and how long you need to keep them for, if that is useful for you guys.

Since my space is so small, I just don’t see the point in keeping a printer (along with all it’s cables) and a filing cabinet in my living room. If there is plenty of space in the closet, it’s a much better place to keep those type of things that you rarely even need to use and/or access, especially when they will take up valuable space in a living room office like mine!

As for how I limit the amount of paper I have in my home that enables me to have such a small file drawer, I will tackle that in my next post. Stay tuned!

My Own 700 Square Feet.

In the last month or so, I have gotten a few requests for pictures of my new apartment. I guess it’s because I moved from a rather large 2 bedroom/2 bath into a small 1 bedroom/1 bath unit and people want to see what it looks like in comparison. Well, I just snapped a few pictures to show you how it looks and so you can see that it’s perfectly fine (and even still bigger than I need) to live in 700 square feet. Take a look:

My Living Room

My Office

My Dining Room

My Kitchen

All Of It

It’s all one room – what more does a single person need to live comfortably? The only thing not shown is my bedroom and bathroom, which are standard issue sizes. My previous unit was 1300 square feet, while this one is slightly over 700 square feet. I bet I could comfortably go down to 600 square feet without blinking an eye. Space is what you make it, and having less “stuff” certainly frees up your options! I could have gotten a much bigger apartment for the same price, but I decided against it for 2 reasons:

1. I don’t need that much space, and more space costs more to heat and cool.
2. The amenities in this apartment are way nicer than those found in older, larger complexes. I would rather pay the same price for a smaller apartment but nicer floors, windows, kitchens, etc – especially because the extra space would just be wasted.

What in the world would I do with a 2,000 square foot house that I see some single people live in? I would feel like I was living in a dance hall. Anyway, just wanted to share since I had gotten a few requests, hope you enjoyed!