Rhonda Bracey: At Random

I had a shelf-load of paperwork I needed to sort out. That was the start of a major undertaking!

When I put the tub of that paperwork out in the shed, I saw tubs of documents from years ago and decided to tackle one of them. Just one at a time otherwise it’s too overwhelming! The first tub was personal tax information from 1994 to 2003! I have NO idea why we’ve kept it all these years (by law we only need to keep tax info for 7 years). At the end (about an hour, so not as daunting as I first thought), I’d reduced the first tubful of paper to just a handful of sheets to keep and a mountain of paper to shred.

I found a couple of interesting things in amongst it all—my first-ever invoice from iinet in 1998 for my internet connection (I’m still with them some 25 years later!), an invoice for my first-ever digital camera (a Sony Mavica for the princely sum of nearly $1200 in 1997! Yes, it took 3.5″ floppy discs and was a clunky monster), an old group certificate which showed my gross income in 1995 was some $45K, and a 1997 bill from the Qantas Club offering various membership levels. I think I opted for life membership after this period expired, an option that hasn’t been offered by Qantas for many years now.

I’ve since tackled quite a few more tubs though I haven’t yet started on the business paperwork (I’ve had my business since 1999). And I’ve created mountains of bags of shredded paper! Those 10 L kitchen caddy compostable bags (the pale green ones in the photo above) were running out quickly. But Bunnings had 54 L ones! So I bought 2 rolls (40 bags), and have already filled nearly 10 of them! Three are already in the 240 L FOGO* bin, 1 is partly full next to the shredder, and these 6 are awaiting their turn to go into the region’s compost heap!

My husband, sister, niece and nephews should be grateful I’ve done this now!!!

• FOGO = Food Organics, Garden Organics, and yes shredded paper is allowed in this bin