This morning was spent trying to tame the paper tiger. As we continue packing and preparing for our move, it would be a fair estimate to say at least 15% of our belongings involve paper in some way, shape or form. This includes but is not limited to kids’ school papers, personal papers, greeting cards, insurance papers, articles from magazines, stacks of magazines, printed emails, and of course, the filing cabinet, the place where papers go when you don’t know what else to do with them.
We are going paperless as much as possible. We have requested all statements to be received in email format, if supported by the company. We pay all our bills online, with the exception of the rent check, which must be mailed, and the water bill, because the city does not offer online or even credit card options for payment. We are trying to minimize the amount of mail that needs to be forwarded from Wisconsin to Clermont. We have lost mail when moving a few blocks; we can only imagine how much mail would go missing across a few states.
As we sort through the filing cabinet, we are finding that most papers can be disposed of, and very little needs to be kept. We hope to be able to contain all our papers within a file box, and maintain this once we move. We will move the file cabinet, as it is already included in the moving inventory, but it will probably be moved into one of the kids’ rooms as a storage place for papers and journals.
One of the interesting aspects of moving long distance, if afforded the luxury of time, is that you are able to decide what is truly important to you, and you discover the things you thought were so important to you, really do not fall into the category of things that matter. One of the truly exciting things about this move is that our possessions will truly be ones that we want to have, and we will indeed be starting over in terms of acquiring furniture. It is very freeing to let go of possessions that only serve to clutter and complicate your life.
Wishes And Pixie Dust 
July 2, 2011 at 7:13 AM
Perfectly said. This is the aspect of preparing for the move that I love. While I have not yet gone through all of the “papers”, I did sort through photos. It was such a relief to get through the piles and piles of photographs we have an to get them organized. Knowing I’m not bringing duplicates and triplicates of photos–remember the days when you would always get doubles when photos were developed? I love the idea of going through everything first as it gives you a chance to purge the stuff that you do not need in life. I’m lucky to have so much time prior to our move to get through it all.
July 2, 2011 at 12:45 PM
We have given away so much. Every week we make a trip to Goodwill and I think there’s possibly not much more we can donate, and then next week we have just as much. I’m glad that we’ve had the time to sort through everything. Right now we’re working on scanning in and then shredding papers–trying to go paperless as much as possible, not only for the move but because it’s a good choice not only for the environment but then you have to store all those papers in the house somewhere!