What to Shred?

With all of our organization efforts, the Hubs and I have copious bills and other papers. Most have personal information and I’d rather not have CERTAIN people get their hands on them. I had doubts about some things, so thought I’d look it up, and share my findings with my faithful reader(s). I found a very complete list from FightIdentityTheft.com. and let me be honest, some of what they suggest surprised me.

• Address labels from junk mail and magazines
• ATM receipts
• Bank statements
• Birth certificate copies
• Canceled and voided checks
• Credit and charge card bills, carbon copies, summaries and receipts
• Credit reports and histories
• Documents containing maiden name (used by credit card companies for security reasons)
• Documents containing names, addresses, phone numbers or e-mail addresses
• Documents relating to investments
• Documents containing passwords or PIN numbers
• Driver's licenses or items with a driver's license number
• Employee pay stubs
• Employment records
• Expired passports and visas
• Un-laminated identification cards (college IDs, state IDs, employee ID badges, military IDs)
• Legal documents
• Investment, stock and property transactions
• Items with a signature (leases, contracts, letters)
• Luggage tags
• Medical and dental records
• Papers with a Social Security number
• Pre-approved credit card applications
• Receipts with checking account numbers
• Report cards
• Résumés or curriculum vitae
• Tax forms
• Transcripts
• Travel itineraries
• Used airline tickets
• Utility bills (telephone, gas, electric, water, cable TV, Internet)

Luggage tags? Really?? We’re going to need a bigger shredder. And a shredding elf. Or, I can take my crap to Office Max, where they will shred it for me, guaranteed. 

Now, if YOU shred, please be green. Get the super cute diamond-cutting machine and use the waste to stuff packages and stuff!