Reduce Clutter Physically &Emotionally; Scan All Paper with Your Printer

Company: Any scanner or all in one.
Price: Incrementally $0.

Scanner is generally not thought of a product, unless you are shelling out $100 for a portable receipt scanner. Scanning is signficantly underused. This is especially true of the all-in-one types of printers that almost always come with scanners (by definition).

I dont have a receipt scanner. I just save all of my receipts in one bag and scan them when I get home. I used scanning for all my bills, pieces of paper with notes or phone numbers, advertisements, invitations, coupon codes and receipts - literally everything that creates a huge mess, that I used to try to juggle in my head. I literally just scan everything and dump the actual papers into a box. I don't even think about wasting my time filing any more.

Most of the time I dont even bother wasting time naming the document unless it is really, really important, because MS windows will show me the document as a thumbnail, if I just sort by date. (Generally, I have some idea about the date.) The only thing I even bother to file and name are tax documents, actual W2, 1099 documents, and those are few and far in between.

Not having to file paper has been really great, a tremendous time saver, and since external hard drives are cheap, about $80 for a terabyte, the whole thing is guilt free. The whole exercise pays for itself in no time, and mentally is so incredibly liberating.  I use a Brother 7820n, but any printer will do.