Almost gone gone gone~!

I am pleased to report (and some might be pleased to hear) that the last few weeks have both been productive and very satisfying. Not that one would know it to look around the house, since laundry is piling up again, but all the same, it makes me feel quite happy to annouce - The pile of papers is all but gone! Ever since high school and college, I've had piles of mail and paper in my room. As in, covers-half-a-3x5-cart-table-two-feet-deep piles of paper. College notes, old pages from writing my book, credit card aps, 401(k) reports, mailings from my insurance company, credit card and bank statements, old paycheck stubs, receipes from friends, family, magazines and newspapers... They've all been saved for when I could get organized, and gathering dust. Since they're paper, they've also been making dust, as well. A few weeks ago, I decided, enough is enough. If I don't tackle it now, I'll be carting this stuff with me when I finally move out of my folk's home! So I did a bit of research online for what I *need* to keep, and what I can get rid of. General consensus said the following: Pay check stubs - keep for one year Credit card statements/payment printouts - keep for one month (long enough to make sure everything is square; from there, it's online anyway) Bank statements - file if desired, otherwise, same as payment printouts Instruction manuals/warranty information & receipts for similar - keep until you no longer own the product they go with So I went through the stack and basically purged everything. I borrowed my dad's shredder, and everything that I didn't need anymore, I got rid of! I had paycheck stubs dating back to 1995, for crying out loud! O_o Anything that was a payment dated last year or older went through the shredder. I also found a bunch of checking account statements that somehow didn't get sorted out when I went to find them all and re-create my long history on my old laptop; those will be punched and added to my binder. My college notes I have elected to keep, but I scanned them into my computer, just in case. I had a bunch of photo-copies for jewelry designs I was working on; those went through the shredder, since I still have the originals in a my design books. All that's left of the paper pile of doom is the few things I have left to file away, and the comic books that I need to get a box for. I recycled about 20 bags of shredded paper, counting the eight that are in the garage, to go out this week. Right now, I'm looking forward to the weather warming up to the point where we can open windows, because shredding all that paper made a heckuva lot of dust. ;P Meanwhile, I've laudry to take care of.