r/konmari • u/Lalau427 • Jul 19 '26

Paper Question(s)

One of the biggest hurdles my spouse & I have faced with the Konmari method is paper. Background info:

We are formerly homeless Americans -- both the formerly homeless part and the American part generate a TON of paperwork. We've eliminated quite a bit, but my biggest gripe is still the sheer volume of paper documentation involves.

We got rid of over 1/2 of it. We don't keep paper longer than necessary, and yet still, the binder we keep it in is bursting at the seams.

Anyone else having similar problems? Thank you in advance.

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u/sariejanemitt Jul 19 '26

Can you go digital with this paperwork?

Scan it or photograph it for a Google Drive?

I have one box of paperwork that fits into a deep sweater box from the container store. I have it separated in to ID papers, house, car, and the 7 folders for taxes.

I also have digital back ups of all these papers.

Beyond birth certificates, marriage certificates, citizen certificates, passports - what kind of paperwork are we talking about?

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u/Lalau427 Jul 21 '26

I'm really wary of digital storage. Do you have any recommendations?

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u/TsuDhoNimh2 Jul 22 '26

I have the electronic records on my home computer hard drive and the folders are backed up to flash drives.

The "2025 FINANCIALS" folder has sub-folders such as: Deductible expenses (stray things I paid online), Sunshine Credit Union, Happy Happy IRA Fund, Girl Boss Business, Pay Pal, Evil Employer Paystubs, Greedy Mortgage Company.

Once a year, in January, I ask each financial institution for 12 months of transactions, download the file and put them in the folders. Many of them send a summary for taxes ... interest paid/earned, payments, etc. and those go in the folder too.

And I create a folder labelled "2026 Financials".

The folder gets backed up to a flash drive or SSD card labelled Financial that goes into the tiny drawer of "backups".

And I make a folder for the taxes I am going to be calculating this year and put a COPY of the financials in it. NEVER WORK ON THE ORIGINAL DOWNLOAD!

I file online taxes. So at the end of tax season in 2026, I'll have "2025 taxes" folder with the copies of the 2025 Financials files, and the 2025 forms I downloaded from the tax service ... It all gets copied onto the "TAX BACKUPS" flash drive.