For goodness sake, get a shredder

[Lel]

Everyone here already knows this, but today I feel like it's worth mentioning again.

A friend of mine and her husband are quite successful, but they've always been careless about protecting their personal information. Last night, they put out their recycling, which apparently included lots of bank, brokerage, and credit card statements, some in unopened envelopes. This morning, before the recycling truck came by, it was all gone.

[llecs]

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Lel wrote:
Everyone here already knows this, but today I feel like it's worth mentioning again.

A friend of mine and her husband are quite successful, but they've always been careless about protecting their personal information. Last night, they put out their recycling, which apparently included lots of bank, brokerage, and credit card statements, some in unopened envelopes. This morning, before the recycling truck came by, it was all gone.

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Doh!

People do rummage through trash. I found evidence of someone opening my trash bags and searching for stuff during the night after I put out the trash in the evening.

[fused]

These are the exact reasons I bought a shredder.

[LouMinotti]

Kind of late now but I would suggest if they don't want to buy a shredder, they could save pay as many bills as possible on line and what does come in the mail or is on paper they could use as kindling in the fireplace come winter, that's what I do.

[southernficoaddict]

I take my box of "stuff" to work and put it in the shredder box. (Under lock and key) We have a company that comes and picks it up to be shredded because its all medical info, and we ALL know about HIPPA.

[cobra19]

Agree with Lou...................go 100% paperless.

[Anonymous]

I need to dig the shredder back out.  It got buried somewhere after the electrical fire in the kitchen (fire extinguisher dust everywhere, luckily only a few things got fried by the surge and no real fire damage).  In the meantime, the kitties have been helping me with document security by yakking on the mail...  If I'm lucky, they do it after I've opened it and pulled out little things like the truck payment.  Good thing I do pretty much everything I can online!

-MsMS

[Lel]

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@southernficoaddict wrote:

I take my box of "stuff" to work and put it in the shredder box. (Under lock and key) We have a company that comes and picks it up to be shredded because its all medical info, and we ALL know about HIPPA.

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I do the same thing - our work shredders are also HIPAA compliant. I shelved our shredder because I'm scared of my kids sticking their fingers into the slot. It does have a safety feature, but I don't want to find out the hard way that it doesn't work.

[soylentorange20]

I too take my stuff to be shredded to the office
and when the bag is about to burst, I take it home
and give it to my DW to use in her rabbit cage.

I figure if anybody is hard-up enuff to dig thru rabbit
crap and other rabbit bodily functions, they can have my
identity, not that anybody would want it anyway LOL

[Anonymous]

I hear ya Soy.  I have been shredding EVERYTHING with any personal info on it for over a year now.  If you look at my siggy, you would wonder why I even bother.  If anyone were to really steal my identity, I hope they have better luck applying for stuff than I do.  Lol.

Seriously though, everyone should shred.  It has become habit for me and I am glad.  When the time comes that my identity would worth being stolen, I will know that I have protected myself as much as possible.