For sale: one filing cabinet

[nickb]

http://niniane.blogspot.com/2008/09/for-sale-one-filing-cabinet.html

[ojbyrne]

A better solution is to file everything by month. It makes for quicker lookups without slowing down writes.

[tom_rath]

...but when you do need that obscure piece of paper you need it right now.

Think of a filing cabinet(1) as an exception or error handler. In a perfect world, you could just burn your receipts and statements after you've finished with them. In our imperfect world, it saves you a world of hurt when you can snatch that stuff at a moment's notice.

(1)(Do sell the filing cabinet though: Bankers boxes are much easier to move about or squirrel away in the closet).

[jauco]

This reminded me of http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/12/28/receipts

[huhtenberg]

This reminds me of an old joke:

  There are exactly two ways to do the dishes - 
  either after the meal or just before it.

[baha_man]

"It takes so long to file the papers into my filing cabinet... I file them into individual folders for bills, insurance, mortgage, etc."

I can't quite see how this could be such a time-consuming task.

[sown]

Although the writes are expensive and very infrequent reads, the cost of having a failed read can be so expensive (like, your house, rapport with the IRS, etc).

[swombat]

Heh, funny.

One small problem with shoeboxes: They get lost.

Proper lever arch folders have more survivability.

[BrandonM → swombat]

I can't say that I've ever lost a shoebox...

[cglee → swombat]

Shoeboxes are horrible. They're not fire-safe, not waterproof, difficult to secure, difficult to distinguish, easy to spill and easy to crush. Get a safe and dump things in there.

[jgamman → cglee]

yet for holding shoes, they seem almost scarily well designed... [when you've spent ages building a hammer...]

[cglee → jgamman]

In the context of the discussion, I meant for insurance documents and such...