I've always managed to shred income tax records that aged beyond the recommended retention period but kept, for whatever reason now that I'm in my late '70s, my military, civilian personnel, academic, and financial files / records.

An a friend mentioned how onerous it was for some folks he knows to have to go through a deceased relatives personal papers.

So I just completed a near two week effort to shred everything no longer needed. My Fellows shredder actually smoked from overheating at one point. Filled a commercial trash bag (40? 50? gallons) to the brim.

Glad to be done with this and relieved knowing this won't be a burden to my heirs.

I keep no important papers.
They have all been scanned and are saved in pdf format on the apple cloud with numerous hard drive backups. It's easy to make copies for the heirs so they know what's what financially.
There is a folder "In Case Of..." with listings of all accounts, real estate property owned, etc.
There will be a set of recommendations apart from the will about how we think it best to deal with properties inherited.

As I get older and unable or unwilling to manage the family finances, one or more of my children will take over to make sure bills are paid, so that my wife will not have to carry that burden.

There will still be a ton of "stuff" to be gotten rid of, but that will not be papers, except for some keepsake items.

I must admit that I'm not very good when it comes to managing and organizing my finances, taxes, and other records, and your post is encouraging me to get them in order, or at least in better order, for my children to deal with.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

.....There will still be a ton of "stuff" to be gotten rid of, but that will not be papers, except for some keepsake items.

I've been (somewhat jokingly) telling my two children the same thing but I really should start minimizing some of my accumulation, stuff they won't be that interested in.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ridewv,

Having served as executor of three estates I thank you!

I keep very little but my wife keeps EVERYTHING. Uggg… and none of it organized.

So, you're saying I should get rid of my Income Tax paperwork going back to (seriously) Y2K. I also still have all of my US Army "Important" papers basically 1964 to 1985. I also kept "historic" documents related to my civilian life between 1985 and 2001 (Awards, newspaper clippings and pay and promotion stuff). I'm afraid to get rid of it because I might need it (I haven't needed it yet, but....)

I actually carried 2 file boxes of that crap in the "basement" of our 5th wheel when we were full time RVers.

Shredding is one way but if you have a backyard with a firepit I think burning it is the way to go.

I went all electronic pdf copies of my documents. Besides my hard drive, I have copies on 3 physical USB drives, 2 cloud services encrypted with lifetime subscriptions, and third back up cloud service.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
There will still be a ton of "stuff" to be gotten rid of, but that will not be papers, except for some keepsake items.

You're being very considerate of your children.

I recently had to clean out my brother-in-laws house when we found him dead inside after having passed at least a month before...he was a hoarder We rented a 40 cubic yard dumpster and filled it five (5) times...yup, 200 cubic yards out of a 1500 sq foot house. Took me a couple of months

There wasn't time to go through his mail as we found it, so we just put anything that looked like documents into 27 gallon boxes and kept them for wife to go through...we end up with eight boxes.

Some of the stuff we came across included a class schedule from the local state college from 1971, some high school class notes from before that, and books from a NV restaurant from sometime in the 30s (plus a nice cranked operated adding machine)

I had a few talks with a family member about his “collections” and he did make a honest effort to clean it up. It takes a very long time to get rid of stuff a couple of trash hopper a week. He accumulated way too much old crap that became obsolete but still usable. He has a four drawer file cabinet full of 40 years of taxes, etc. but can’t ever find his vehicle registration.

I set up a trust. On my demise each of my heirs will get a percentage of my assets. My bank’s trust department will liquidate my physical assets. My nearest heir is 1,500 miles distant from my current home. They won’t have to do anything except scatter my ashes over my parent’s graves.

I cleaned out my mother's house. She is 100 now, lived in the house until she broke her hip. There are about 4 wheelbarrow loads of papers I HAVE to find the original cost of the house. The county does not have it. They have the lot, but not the house.

First weekend of cleanout at my Dad's house after he passed my Sister and I filled up 50 trashbags. I have cleaned out 2 storage units. Had the shredder truck come shred 100 bankers boxes so far (Dad was a lawyer). Had to take the furniture in storage to the dump (termites). 3 more storage units to go.

I'd like to say I'm far more organized, but only slightly. Dad was a good Texan and did leave me some nice guns, so there's that.

As long as my gmail doesn’t get hacked.. password protected.pdf copies of my tax return in ema from my tax guy are on there.

Paper copies of our trust and real estate and some various other important but not sensitive docs are in the file cabinet.


My dad was going through my grandmas stuff about 20 years ago before putting her in a home. Found his parents tax returns from the early 1940’s. Other than seeing what a skilled tradesman made in 1942 and 1943, One single line item stood out and it was child support being paid by my grandfather and a child’s name. From that and a LOT of research we were able to find my dads half brother who was about 7 years older than my dad that my dad had NEVER been told about. They got to know each other and even spent a few weekends with each other after meeting in their late 70’s. My uncle has since passed away but except for that document that should have been shredded 50 years prior they never would have gotten to meet.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
They won’t have to do anything except scatter my ashes over my parent’s graves.

You might want to double-check this. When my sister died in CA, my estate attorney told me that CA strictly regulates the disposition of remains, including cremains. We wanted to bury her ashes on her extremely rural property, but were told that was a no-no. Interment in a licensed facility or dispersal at sea were the only legal options.

quote:

Having served as executor of three estates I thank you!

Combo of this and having lived in 5 different houses now will give you good perspective and focus on this. Leaving a pile of crap for our kids seems like the ultimate act of disrespect and inconsideration we could close out with. If I'm holding something in my hand, know I won't use it and my kids won't treasure or keep it, or maybe even know what/where/why it's here, it needs to find a new home now, not later.

Good for you!!

I try to keep my stuff decently organized (including OUR financial documents, important receipts, tax stuff) but dear wife is a total disaster on other stuff. I think she learned from her mom to save EVERTHING, as you might need it some day, and that corners are for stacking stuff into. Drives me crazy.

She used to like going to model houses to check them out and look at decorating with me but not anymore. One time she was going on and on how nice a house looked and I was like "well yeah, there isn't junk and clutter stacked all over the place" but she didn't appreciate my comment or learn from it.

I just turned 73 and told he I am not getting any younger and losing energy every passing year. I am going to clean out the basement with or without your help and don't want to heat anything about it if you won't help. We will see how that goes LOL.

Don't get me wrong I dearly love my wife and she is an amazing person other than she can't part with her old stuff no matter how worthless it is and doesn't try to organize it either.

Some of the best advice I had read was consider that if your house burnt down, what would you actually replace.

In the period 2017-2018 I had to settle both my wife's estate and that of her mother who predeceased her. My wife was too weak from cancer to close out her mother's estate, which included a large, fully furnished house. The estate attorneys were very clear. I had to go through every file. My wife's parents were children of the Depression, so kept nearly everything. One of her close friends was out of work and offered to help. It took us months to go through everything (including four four-drawer filing cabinets from her father's business). In the very end, I contracted for a shredding business to pick up and shred at curbside over bankers' boxes of documents. The good news is that preserving the papers until the estates closed was important; we found paperwork which addressed tax and financial questions over 35 years old. I learned my lesson. I began downsizing when I moved to my retirement home and continue to review and purge files, donate household items, and started selling many of the firearms my wife and I owned.

I'm by no means a hoarder but do need to shred some records. No need to keep a promotion form or paystub from 1990, etc. And don't need to keep the National Park Service color brochures/maps from every park I've visited.

Way ahead of you. All of the ones important enough to keep are in an accordion folder in the safe. It's nowhere near full.

Totally agree, after dealing with my father's unexpected death a few years ago.

But, do keep in mind that some old documents may be of great interest to descendants. Draft cards, passport, a letter from/to a child. It certainly doesn't mean keep a box full of every art project from elementary school, but a few physical items rather than just digitized copies are worth preserving.