![\"Co](\"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/weblog\/Co%20Spgs%20kill%20paper%20CD-thumb.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI found that most of the paper can be trashed immediately. It’s amazing how much paper we had in the files that we really didn’t need. I spent much of yesterday and today scanning the rest, and earmarking things to be dropped off in storage when we get back to Vermont. <\/p>\n
Getting rid of the paper is a job, too. It’s all sensitive data, filled with account numbers, tax ID #s, SS #s, etc. Shredding it all is out of the question — I have enough to overheat any shredder, and shredding takes too long anyway. We’ll burn it tomorrow night in the campfire ring. <\/p>\n
People often say how “brave” we are for tossing the paper in favor of scanned images. But really, this is much safer. A fire or water leak in the trailer would probably result in total loss of our paper files. Once scanned, however, I have multiple copies and can re-print any document in seconds. One copy of everything will be on my laptop, another on Eleanor’s laptop, a third on my backup hard drive, and a fourth copy will be burned to CD and mailed offsite for ultimate security.<\/p>\n
Moreover, I don’t have to worry about someone coming in the trailer and stealing documents for purposes of identify theft (not that I was really concerned in the first place). I can easily encrypt the entire folder of “scanned documents” so that nobody but Eleanor and I can view them — better than a safe!<\/p>\n
The only downside of this is the initial job of scanning a few years worth of documents. We brought documents (mostly tax records) going back to 2003. I have invested several days, counting the time back in San Diego, getting all that paper reduced to electrons. Going forward it should be much easier, since I scan new incoming documents every couple of weeks, and also because we are receiving much less paper these days than before we started full-timing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sorry I’ve been offline. The in-laws offered to take Emma for an overnight with her cousin, and Eleanor and I took the evening off to go out on a date. I figured if I’m taking an evening off from being a parent, I can take an evening off from being a blogger, too. With a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Co](\"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/weblog\/Co%20Spgs%20kill%20paper%20pile.jpg\")
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