I can blame it on the retirement "office". As a part of this whole preparing for retirement, which still isn't even visible on my horizon, I needed to check on some things for our financial advisor. One thing led to another--and I ended up talking to the "retirement office". We don't agree on my years of "credit"--and I know they are not right! My fault for having a string of employers over my professional life (all part of the same retirement system). Anyway, they need my "documents"--from the 70's if I am to get enough money to support my habits when I stop working!
Now most people would just laugh at the idea of finding a few pieces of paper from 30 years ago(I suspect a secret scheme by the "office" people, who are surely younger than my generation, to reduce my benefits). I however have saved nearly every scrap of paper that has entered our lives since 1968--just ask my kids! Unfortunately, in the more or less organized category, most of it is "less". Thus, began my "trip".
I started with a file cabinet that we moved into the garage when we moved here. It hasn't been opened since (?)...But we both knew "important stuff" was in there--our lives from the 70's--the decade I was looking for! I borrowed the shredder from S's office, and stared with the top drawer.
As I worked my way through the drawers and folders, I was there again---a young mother buying new carpet for our home in 1973--$500.00 for the whole house--and paying for it over 12 months "same as cash". There was the first washer--bought used from a neighbor, a dear sweet lady in her 70's who was moving to an apartment, and who meticulously wrote out a receipt--I can still see her digging in the flower gardens along our adjoining driveway--although I am sure the only flowers she tends now are in the afterlife. Too bad I didn't appreciate her gardening more then.
There were the orthodontist assessments and contracts, obligating us to thousands of dollars in payments--for the promise of children with pretty teeth. There were the bills for the deliveries of "the four"--varying degrees of cost depending on the insurance coverage at the time, 4th grade assessment scores, receipts for T.V.'s , band camps, ice skating lessons, and thousands of Rx receipts. There were major medical statements, appointment letters and resignations, retirement plan statements, and roll-over papers. And Tax Returns. Decades of bank statements, credit card bills, insurance bills, papers related to various cars, homes bought and sold, the receipts for violas, drum sets, and horns, furniture delivery notices, and rent receipts. Pretty much in that order--decades mixed together as we moved (literally and figuratively) through our lives.
There were the flood of memories when I found something in my dad's handwriting, the trust account statements for the kids that noted my mothers regular and religious $5.00 deposits-- used to help finance their college experience, a note from my father-in-law about insurance to consider. Things I should have appreciated more at the time,--as would love to be able to consider their advice again. There was the occasional art work created long ago in elementary school by one or the other of "the four", and piles of paperwork related to one emergency room or another. There were research papers and my dissertation, transcripts, and lots of the kid's report cards.
I started shredding the 60's and 70's last night. Today, I started in on the 80's--so much paper accumulated over 36 years! It was slow going--had to sort into save and shred (took much longer than the time they allow on Clean Sweep!) Then there was the pacing the shredding, so that the shredder would not overheat!
I finished four drawers--and have filled our waste wheeler with tiny shreds of our lives--the important stuff that is left will fit into one drawer--in the house, not the garage--which has caused the start of another project--make room in the file cabinet by shredding the 90's!
And after all of this--the exact two years that I need are still MIA's--somewhere in the other drawers, tubs, and boxes holding the scraps that record our lives--I just have to wade trough them to find the specific check stubs and W-2's....And continue my long over due "purging" of our old gas, water, and electric bills. (Would you believe that once we only paid $17.95 for cable?)
The amazing thing, was that we survived the life those bits of paper represent! I looked at the amounts on the bills--yesterday's dollars--but still a lot! People used to say to me (trying to reign in four kids in public) "I don't know how you do it!" Now that I have peeked back into our financial lifetime, I have no idea how we did it either! I am just glad that I don't have to do it anymore.....
Maybe this obsession with "saving for retirement" will be much easier than paying for a life of raising four kids! It certainly requires making fewer payments! Hope the reward is as good---because even though it was incredibly expensive, our lives over the past 36 years were worth it! I would much rather have a file drawer full of orthodontist receipts, records of instrument purchases, and Rx galore, than the trade off of early retirement with a fat retirement account--and no family to enjoy it with!
And I promise myself that once I find the documents I need, I will continue the trek--to organize and purge, and then to continue to use one of those "Martha Stewart" or "Simple" feature article tips and set up an annual disposal schedule for the things that we need not keep (yeah, right)!
A more likely scenario is that I will get busy living my life, and continue to allow my scraps and statements to accumulate in the boxes, tubs, and drawers in a more or mostly less organized fashion. Maybe when I need to formally set up things with the "retirement office" I will finish the task completely and have a "system"---but that will not happen until the next decade--so I have lots of time to try! And it was fun to relive the 36 years--a page at a time!
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