Taxes – and the paper monster!

April is tax time here in Norway. You get all your information drizzling in over a couple of months and by April 30th you better have your taxes done and delivered or hell breaks loose… or does it?

Actually no, it doesn’t, any longer…

You see, Norway started with e-filing quite a few years ago, where you pretty much just had to check, correct and press a button to file your tax return, and you were done. Nice right?

Well, now we have gone even further. Now we don’t have to do anything, absolutely zilch, nada, nope…

You see, the rule is that if you don’t press that button to “file and approve” your tax return, they just assume that you “approve” the numbers the tax authorities have concluded with, and it’s being automatically filed for you… Great yeah? Well, yes it is, IF they have your numbers correct in the system.

And that’s a big IF! Regardless of how automated taxes are becoming, I would always recommend to take an hour or two and check it properly. Check that they have the correct amounts on your pay and deductibles, that they have not forgotten anything or added something that should not be there. They might not know about all the little things about you, make sure you add them. It can pay off, as every little amount can help reduce the final amount of taxes.

So, every year, end of April, I sit down to do my taxes, and at the same time, I start to go through the rest of my paper monster 😉

My taxes don’t yield a lot of paper any more, as most everything is online. And truth be told, the rest of the year don’t yield a lot either. But even though most of my stuff is now online at different institutions, I still seem to manage to hold on to a significant amount of papers anyway. And this year that stops!

I have decided that this is the year to digitize my entire paper pile! Everything that I want/need to keep, that is in paper form, will be scanned over the next few months. And it all starts, today, people. It all starts today 🙂

So what kind of papers have I been holding on to and collected?

Tax papers
Insurance papers
Birth certificates
Medical papers
Pension information
Warranty receipts
Work papers
Some bills
Old letters and postcards
Random cut outs from magazines
Scraps of papers with all kinds of scribbles on (yes, that would be my scribbles)
+++

As you can see from the list, I’m holding on to a lot of paper related stuff (I have a few shelves and boxes full) so you can see how this might take me a while to go through.

My game plan:

Tomorrow I’m going to collect all and I mean ALL the paper I have in my house and put it in a pile or two or ten 🙂 I think there will be a few piles as I’m sure I have way more paper stashed around than I realise.

And thats when the real works starts! I’m going to have to go through everything, and decide what to toss, what to shred, what to scan and what to keep as physical paper.

But… before I can get to the scanning part… I need to get my hands on a half decent two-sided paper scanner, so guess that’s also on my list of things to do.

Stay tuned…. I’ll be posting all about that terrible pile…. yes, soon!! 😉

Another tree saved…?

A few months back I wrote an article Saving a tree or two… about how my February plastic challenge had inspired me to pay more attention to the trash we produce.

In the article, I told you how I convinced B to put a “No junk” sticker on his mailbox, to reduce the amount of paper trash we produced. Since I was the one that paid attention to the good deals to be had from the grocery stores, we figured he no longer needed the advertisements.

Now, you would be happy to know, that since that day, B is no longer the only one with the “No junk” sticker on his mailbox, I’m in as well 🙂

B told me how great it was not having to shuffle the junk straight from his mailbox to the trash (as he never really read any of them) anymore. And after having looked, I found that about 90% of the stuff could be found online anyways, so there really wasn’t much reasons to keep the paper…

About 2 months ago I put my own sticker on the mailbox, and it’s a blessing! There is hardly any junk mail anymore, and funnily enough it keeps my house a little “neater” (I never realized how much of the paper stuff I would actually keep, hanging around, for a few days).

Now the “downside” is, that since I’m trying to limit my online time, I’m not paying as much attention, to good grocery deals, as I normally would. On the other hand, the upside is that I don’t waist any time looking through electronic, furniture, sportsstuff, tiles, lamps, paint stuff, garden stuff ++ (you get the drift) anymore either, and I’ll take that 🙂

So here we are two households, less off paper, and loving it!

Now, if I could just figure out a way to reduce paper receipts from when we go shopping (I collect them to keep track of my finances), then I might really be saving a tree 😉

Guess, that’s next on my list! Suggestions, anyone?

PS. For opting-out in US, UK and Norway, try these resources; US – FTC site, UK – Royal mail opt-out and Norway Posten opt-out

October tally

It’s that time again! That monthly catch up to let you know how I did with my decluttering task last month. And I have to say, I did appalling. As you have probably noticed there wasn’t one single post about things going out-the-door, in the whole month of October, with maybe the exception of my post about shedding some TV time.

That don’t mean that there wasn’t the occasional thing going out-the-door, it just means I didn’t ever get around to write about it, or remember to take pictures of it before it was gone.

It’s hard to remember what all those things was right now, but some of the items I decluttered was:

– papers, magazines and stuff like that, that I’ve been holding on too for a long time = 2 big paper bags worth – count as 1
– stuff in my outdoor storage boxes, and outdoor storage room – like wood, piping, plastic pieces, paint cloth, paint brushes, plastic plant pots and I’m sure.. a few more things. What count to give them? Hmmm.. why don’t we say 1 count per category I remember I was tossing out, that seems kinda fair, since I can’t really prove to you what went out the door – count as 6 items

And then there’s is the stuff I’ve been decluttering out of different rooms in the house, but that are still “stored” in my guest room (for my neighbour to check out before it leaves the house). Those things I will be writing about as they leave the house permanently (hopefully during the month of November)

OCTOBER TALLY of things “out-the-door” = 7 items!

Not good, I know.. but I’ll do much better in November, I’m sure, now that I’m done with my kitchen project 😉

A lighter china cabinet!

I have this beautiful oriental cabinet, sitting in the middle of my Scandinavian style furniture.

Of all things in this wold to use it for, I keep a lot of catalogues and brochures, papers, manuals and bills in it. It’s also the place I put all papers I keep through the year, before they get archived away, come tax time 🙂 I might also put some of my magazine cut outs in here as well, oh yes, and the town-house community correspondence (I’m on the board.. actually thinking about it, I think, I am the board 😉 )

So you see, my little cabinet, is in a sense – my office storage.

Today I decided to go through some of the brochures, cut outs and manuals. The regular paper cleanup, is a March/April job, while preparing for tax time.

The catch of the day?
16 cut out sheets from magazines
2 user manuals for stuff I no longer own
7 magazines
27 catalogues and brochures