Here you’ll find the fastest way to shred paper without a paper shredder. This simple tip saves time and is cheaper than buying a paper shredder to destroy your sensitive documents.
The obvious thing would have been to stay on top of the paper shredding. Instead, I sat on the floor in front of my little $30 shredder, deconstructing a mountain of paper one sheet at a time.
The tiny motor would labor on until it overheated or inevitably ground to a halt and I had to pick the tiny bits of shredded paper to free up the jam.
I repeated the pattern until I got bored or ran out of time. And the shred pile would live on for another day.
This was once upon a time, before I had kids and had the space to think about such things.
Fast forward to this Fall as I was doing some decluttering, and guess what.
Different day. Different paper. Same problem.
It was time to find a solution.
What Documents Should You Shred?
My first question was whether I needed to be shredding all that paper at all.
From my research, you should shred anything that has personal information on it including:
- Your name
- Address
- Phone number
- Social security number
- Account numbers
This might include:
- Bills
- Receipts
- Bank and Credit Card Statements
- Pay Stubs
Do you need a paper shredder?
I briefly considered whether I should go ahead and fork out $100 or more for a higher quality shredder.
However, this seemed to be at odds with my goal to declutter the house!
Fastest Way to Shred Paper without a Paper Shredder
By now, our documents-to-be-shredded bag had overflowed into a documents-to-be-shredded box and was threatening to demand landmark status and its own place on the map.
Keeping the pile sitting around seemed like almost more of a threat to our identity security than throwing it away.
Finally, we happened upon the perfect solution.
Copier and mailing stores like FedEx, UPS Store, and some local options offer document shredding by the pound.
For 75 cents per pound, we shredded over a year’s worth of documents for only $12.
This seemed like a bargain compared to spending $100 for a decent shredder that may not last long enough to prove its worth and clutters up our space.
I love it when the world of getting organized collides with easy ways to save money.
This time, Paper Mountain disappeared for good.
What do you think? Is it worth it to buy a paper shredder? How do you deal with sensitive documents?
