Natural byproduct of the Scanathon: going paperless
October 27, 2008
It aggravated me to no end to realize that after spending all that time organizing, scanning and shredding, I was still receiving paper statements. Well, duh. I’d not followed up by cancelling paper statements because, deep down, I don’t trust those darned companies not to try to slip one past me!
*By “those” companies, I mean all of them. I don’t trust companies. But that’s just because I’m a good steward of my money and they’re good takers of my money. Biiiig difference.
In any case, there’s no point in prolonging my pain when I know off the top of my head that, at least for my Chase credit cards, I can always download the PDF of the statement for my records.
As of tonight, I’m signing up for paperless only for my:
- Chase credit card accounts – 4 total. I only use one card regularly, so I’ll check those statements as they’re produced and I’m not worried about the other three. Any charges on the other three will come up as transactions on Yodlee so I can check out the anomalies.
- Citi credit cards – 5 consumer cards total. They’ll send me email notifications for each statement and I can download the six most recent months’ worth of PDFs as well.
- American Express – couldn’t switch because they were having maintenance issues. Bummer, try again later.
By the time I’m through scanning all the CC statements, a billing cycle will likely have passed and the statements will stop. Yippee!
Next up: cell phone bills (2), and banking statements (10). It occurs to me that a great way to simplify some of this would be to consolidate more accounts and, y’know, actually simplify my banking and accounting systems. Mmhmm…. just a thought.
It’s amazing the feeling of getting your house in order!
I download all the pdfs of everything LOL!!!!
Good job on scanning the hell out of your filing system š
Wow! 10 cards?
You should be able to download any statements from a company that offers electronic service.
Frugal Trenches: It’s like working your way towards a clean bill of health š And it’s nice knowing that’s stuff I’m not going to have to pack, haul and unpack later.
FB: No wonder you have about five externals! I find myself ogling a backup backup now …
Karen: I have more, actually, but I’m consolidating and cancelling some of them in the process of cleaning up the records.