saving trees

I’ve been thinking more and more about the concept of a paperless office. Little by little I’m trying to become less dependent on paper. After moving from one house to another I realized how much paper I kept in boxes and files that really wasn’t necessary. I recycled a lot of it after the move. I’ve read up on how long you should retain certain documents, and most of the things I’ve been keeping don’t need to be kept. Paycheck stubs can be shredded after one year, as long as the information on them appears accurate. I believe I have paycheck stubs from the past seven or eight years. I like being able to look back through my employment history, but don’t think I need to keep every single document.
I suppose a next smart purchase would be a paper shredder, so I can get rid of certain documents without the fear of personal information being stolen.

Online Banking
I finally set up most of my bills for online bill pay. I suppose having secure internet access and a new laptop gave me the confidence to do it. There’s an option to receive bills electronically which I haven’t set up yet, but will do soon.
In the past I pulled all my paper bills together once a month and sat down with them to write out checks and mail payments. I’ve found that this isn’t always the best idea, since due dates are different. I’m going to call and find out if I can change the due dates for certain services and utilities – not sure if it’s possible, but it would be nice.