The fact that I’ve been spending more and more time in my office lately is 100% related to the fact that it’s the dreaded tax season!
All things considered, I don’t really mind tax season because it certainly helps me get my business organized, gives me a very clear idea of where I’m truly at in my entrepreneurship, and gives me goals to focus on for the following tax year (that would be: make more money and find more deductions!)
I learned last year that I need to be more prudent about my business expenses and that means, of course, keeping more receipts and more paperwork.
Here are my top 5 products that help me stay organized as an entrepreneur with a home business, maybe you will find them helpful too!
1. A filing system – For years, even before I owned my own business, I used an accordion-style filing box that was portable. This is great for many people and because it’s portable you can keep it in your closet if you don’t have a home office. Now, I have a large desk with a filing drawer and hanging folders which makes it perfect to just drop in paperwork.
2. A small, portable, receipts envelope. This one from Staples is what I use to keep track of my monthly receipts. I absolutely love it because it’s small and portable yet keeps all those small slips of paper neatly organized. Receipts equal expenses and I like having expenses…sort of.
3. A shredder like this Fellowes Powershred P-12C Shredder ($99.97 at Walmart). Listen, home business or not, you need a shredder. Simply tearing up your documents isn’t good enough in this day and age of fraud and identity theft. People are shocked when they see how easy it can be for someone to steal your identity or simply learn more information about you that is none of their business with just a few pieces of discarded paperwork. This shredder in particular can shred up to 12 pieces of paper at one time and will even shred paperclips and staples if you accidentally forget to remove them (it’s happened to me, whoops!) Another great feature, that’s very important in a household with kids, is the patented SafeSense® Technology that stops the shredder when hands touch the opening (not such a bad idea for households with adults, either!)
4. A printing calculator is something I didn’t realize I needed until my sister explained to me why I did. Every year I calculate various stacks of paper for my taxes, write the total on the top or on a sticky note, and carry on. She explained that by having a detailed calculator tape showing what numbers I entered to get such a total will go a long way should I ever have to re-evaluate my calculations down the road. Simply stapling the print-out to each expense is an excellent way to further stay organized.
5. A wireless printer is essential for any home to help stay on top of online receipts and other info. Don’t wait until tax season to start printing receipts because you will inevitably miss one. Print as you go, even if you end up stacking the receipts on top of the printer for filing later. Make it a routine to do this and you’ll be grateful come tax time when you are one step ahead. Look for a brand name that has a reputation for quality and buy your printer ink in bulk!
Did you know that March is fraud prevention month? To help you get organized for tax season and keep your information safe all year round, I have a great giveaway from Fellowes! Enter below to win a Fellowes Powershred P-12C Shredder!
To get rid of the evidence… 😉
To dispose of top secret business numbers 🙂
I run a home based business plus my husband also has his own business, we really need a paper shredder! This is something that we should have had YEARS ago, yet we never really thought it was pertinent, until now that is! Credit card fraud has hit us twice now, and we have to make sure that we are keeping our information secure!
I need this because I have way too much paper at home, and I’m afraid of identity theft. Help me clean my house!
I love to have a shredder. I shred everything by hand and takes forever. Don’t want info falling in the wrong hands.
Your list has the same essentials as my office, except I can’t use the wireless printer, I get communication problems for some reason. Unfortunately my paper shredder just bit the bullet on me after many years of exceptional service, so I’m in the market for a new one! Thanks for the giveaway!
Wireless printers drive me crazy! Try shutting it down and restarting and/or restarting your router. Sometimes…sometimes…that works for me!
to get rid of all my old financial records
Right now i’m picturing a giant mountain of shredded papers in the middle of our living room begging me to jump off the couch and into them – and I vote YES!
Would love a safe way to get rid of all our papers and personal info 🙂
Just started my own business and have been victimized by identity theft before.
I am in need of a shredder as I am about to open my own home based business. Thanks for the article!
We need one because we have several adults at home and we all have different kind of statements that we want to get rid of but we want to get it done safely so that our information won’t be exposed.
I have an old shredder that barely shreds one paper at a time, need a new one!
so my husband can go through all our paperwork and shred what we dont need anymore
I have an ancient shredder that is constantly getting jammed. Time for an upgrade!
love to own one of these to get rid of all my old financial records and other papers I don’t need any more
To get rid of government and other personal records safely
To shred all my important papers to help avoid identity theft.
This shredder looks awesome. we have a lot of confidential and financial documents that we often purge so this would be perfect!
I would love to win this! would be great to get rid of all our old documents that we will not toss in the garbage!!
I need a shredder because we need to shred documents that has our personal info on it…everything from paid bills to old records.
I would love a new shredder. I absolutely believe that we should destroy important docs that we no longer need.
I have all lots of papers that I don’t feel comfortable just throwing out, this would help
so I can shred my old visa statements
The shredder we currently has claims to be able to shred 6 pages at a time. However, in reality I am lucky if it does 3 at a time…so it takes a long time to shred anything. I do shred a lot of documents as well, so would like a more efficient shredder. And I like that the Fellowes Powershred P-12C Shredder can handle staples as well.
There is a pile of old documents that I am politely ignoring. Documents that should be shredded.
so i can finally shred all the old paper work we have lying around in the house. I have tax returns from the 90s kicking around in a box in my bedroom closet.
I need the shredder to get rid of years and years of bills and paperwork that I haven’t wanted to just throw out.
To get important information destroyed & avoid identity theft.
so i can shred my mistress’ love notes and keep them away from prying eyes
We need this shredder so we can safely dispose of our important and sensitive paperwork!
I have a Walmart shopping bag full of papers that I take to work when full. I use that shredder to shred my stuff. It is total pain in the butt but I would rather be safe than sorry! Having one a home would great!
I know I should use a shredder for safety as I recycle so much paper.
I need this because I broke my shredder last week.
Because although I love to declutter, I also appreciate keeping important documents secure and out of the wrong hands.
I have a lot of private documents to shred and I always have to bring them to work to do it .
I’m trying to declutter and have piles of old documents in need of shredding!
I have lots of private document and I also bring them to work to shred. Would be nice to have one at home.
I need it to shred personal papers.
Im going to be completely honest and say I want a shredder thats more powerful then the one my husband has ! he be so jealous LOL
I really need one because right now I just rip my papers up in tiny little pieces. 🙂
I need a new shredder. Mine seems to get jammed up very frequently.
We need one because my husband works from home and we have SO much personal paperwork that can’t be thrown out. We’ve started getting rid of stuff more than 7 years old so we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Besos, Sarah
Blogger at Journeys of The Zoo
My current shredder only shreds 3 pieces of paper……..which takes forever, would love a better one
I need one to shred confidential business documents and other personal info type stuff. Don’t like tossing that stuff in the garbage or recycle bin. Don’t need another me walking around with a stolen identity that’s for sure!
So important to shread. Ours just stopped working so could use a new one for sure!
I need a Fellowes Powershred P-C12 Shredder in our house because we run a home-based business. And perhaps we can use some of the shredded paper for crafts and gardening! 😉
We have a lot of old receipts/documents that need shredding!
alot of documents with information for the hubby’s personal info as well as mine
I have a huge pile of stuff I need to cut up, so a shredder would help me tremendously
I could use the shredder as I dont own one and struggle to destroy personal documents when they are no longer needed
I’d like it to destroy documents as well as save on paper trash space.
to shred old bills and bank statements!
Been going through boxes and boxes of old documents and shredding what is no longer needed, but in doing so, my shredder died on me. I really need a new one.
I would shred my bills
need to shred my bills!
I need a new shredder as the old one is on the fritz.Thanks for giving me the opportunity to win one.
I could use this in my house to shred bills and other sensitive documents before throwing out.
With my husband’s business, we need something to shred all of his paperwork!
I need this shredder because my husband loves leaving papers all over!
I could really use a shredder at home! It would save me the hassle of taking our sensitive documents to work in order to safely dispose of them.
i have alot of documents to shred..it could take days
I would like to shred papers with my name and info on them.
I have documents that I need to shred…winning this would be great
I’m a bit of a paper hoarder, and because I enter a lot of contests, I get quite a bit of junk mail. I like to recycle but am conscious that I may be leaving myself open to privacy issues. So a shredder is on my list of things to get.
I burnt out the motor on our old one so this would be a great win!
I need this because I live in a townhouse complex with dumpsters. There are people going through the dumpsters quite often. I assume they are looking for bottles to return to the depot but it makes me worry about throwing any paper work in the trash.
Between our personal information, a rental property and a small business we need a shredder!
I have a box of papers to be shredded that I keep putting off doing anything about, maybe if I won it would inspire me to tackle the job!
I’d like to win this so I can shred certain documents!
I would like this as it would help take care of important papers when I do not need them anymore instead of tearing them.
silverneon2000 at yahoo dot com
I am very aware of the need to destroy personal information. We get so much junk mail too, it’s so much easier to recycle it all this way.
I need a shredder because the paper is starting to take over even more than the cats have taken over (and that’s a lot!)
It’s so important to destroy any personal info. What goes to the curb is fair game to thieves. Shred it!!
We need a new shredder!! Ours died now after 8 years!
I have a pile of documents i want to discard in a safe spot.. hah
We need a shredder because we have lots of papers that need to be shredded
thanks
I like to purge household receipts that I no longer need.
I have tons of old bills and receipts to shred
I could definitely use this. My last shredder completely fell apart and I haven’t been able to replace it…so now I have a pile of papers building and no shredder. We all know how quick papers multiply….it’s way out of control here and this would help immensely.
I shred by hand so this could in handy
I desperately need this shredder. There’ve been so many times I’ve had to manually rip or cut a private document into little tiny pieces because I’m afraid of it ending up in the wrong hands. This would save me soooooooo much time as well as my life!!
Our shredder just died and this shredder would be an amazing replacement!
I would love to win this so I can get rid of items in our filing cabinet.
I would use it to shred all of our personal documents. Can never be too careful when it comes to fraud and identity theft.
What NOT to shred? bills, contracts, letters of intent… business stuff. Not to mention a shredder is very useful for kids crafts (I have 3 kids who need to be kept busy. Constantly.) and for bunny bedding!
The filing cabinet would certainly have more room in it as I would be able to shred and clean out old records on a regular basis.
to shred my bills and other documents I throw in the recycle bin
my husband is currently ripping up documents before throwing them in the garbage. we would love to have a shredder but our money is better spent on the kids.
It’s always a good idea to keep up to date with your shredding!
I shredded all my bank statements & anything with name & address on it.
I don’t have one…the last one that I had was a small desk top shredder…it didn’t last very long and I haven’t replaced it yet.
I would like to have this so I could shred anything with personal information on it
It would be great to have this to shred papers that contain personal info on them
I have files that are more than a decade old that need to be discarded but due to privacy I don’t want to just throw them out-I would prefer to shred them. Or I guess I will hang onto them for another 10 years! Lol
We have a home business and we currently use an old crappy shredder:) Would love a spiffy new one!
Our current shredder is older and doesn’t handle too many sheets at any time.
With the increase in identity theft/fraud, I’d love to win this shredder to shred all of my bills and important documents
I need it because I shred all my papers by hand
I need one because right now all I do is rip my documents and throw them out. And my husband owns his own business so a shredder would really come in handy.
The hubby burnt out the last shredder we had. I would love to win this Fellowes Powershred P-C12 to replace the one we lost.
Presently I tear everything into tiny, tiny pieces!
We would love this since the shredder wehave isnt that great
would be useful to shred all our personal papers , would be better than just shredding by hand!
would be awesome to dispose of personal papers
to shred all important documents
Our last shredder died, and purchasing a new, good quality shredder just hasn’t been in the budget. It’s that time of year, our annual office clean-out (coinciding with income tax filing) – and a new shredder sure would be handy for our documents that should be destroyed.
Thank you!
Dawn
Not having a shredder at home, this would sure come in handy as I have lots of mail and paperwork that would need to get shredded on a monthly basis.
A shredder would save time — currently I cut up all our documents with a pair of scissors!
For personal paperwork.
I am an avid shredder, having worn out at least two shredders. My current shredder overheats on a regular basis and desperately needs to be replaced. Would LOVE to win this one!
i need a shredder to save time instead of cutting up all my documents
I rip up all our papers or cut them up with scissors but I get behind and right now I have a box full that need shredded. I could get on top of the shredding and get rid of the paper box if I had this.
because i have so many files to shred and nothing to do it with
I could really use this with our house bills and my business as well. thank you!
I need a Fellowes Powershred P-C12 Shredder to shred some papers and looks like the best eq to do so.
Our shredder is useless and old. Papers get stuck in it and I reverse and hit shred over and over and over. And then just end up in a rage ripping it up myself. And the paper shreds are all bulked up and hard to pick up. Ours even started smoking once. Time to send to the tech graveyard.
I’d like to have a shredder as we don’t have one and it would be great to shred the personal info/documents we don’t need anymore.
Thanks.
Id love to win and go shred cray cray on all my paperwork lol
My DH works from home and we’ve been thinking about borrowing our neighbour’s shredder. I think we just need to get our own 😉
Never had a shredder and considering we have alot of personal papers with our info on it and living in an apt where some ppl tend to look through garbage, this would be a great little gadget to own so no one can get their hands on private stuff.
We have a five year old small shredder and a bin full of “stuff” needing shredding. It is not fun when the blades don’t cut anymore (not sharp) So the bin just sits full. Oh would it be nice to get rid of that garbage.
I could use a shredder because I don’t have one yet, and ask my sisiter to bring hers over when she comes to visit.
It will be useful, no question about it!
I could totally use this to clean up our home office. When you still have bills from 15 years ago lying around……..time to do a big purge and a shred!
Would love a shredder for all my personal documents!
My last 2 burned out. It is time to go for quality. I need a reliable shredder
I need this shredder for my boss @ First Choice Footcare. We can’t currently shred all our old files because we’ll burn out the shredder we have! We’d love to win!!
I’m a student and I always have so much paper everywhere!
https://twitter.com/buttagal/status/446028870987558913
shred personal items
Need to shred those old files
I need this shredder because the one I have is about 10 years old and I have to do small batches of 1 or 2 pages at a time
cause we have a lot of medical documents that need shredding
I am entering your contest.
It would be great to win a Fellowes Powershred P-C12 Shredder
because I have boxes of papers to shred.
Thanks for having this contest.
We have so many banking and important documents that are old and need to be shredded. This would be great to keep the clutter down when we no longer need to save documents with ssn, account numbers, etc.
I would love a new shredder as mine stops on me, the red (overheating light) comes on, so I figure it will probably give up working in the near future.
I would like a paper shredder in my house because my grand son has down syndrome and he’s therapy time is shredding papers. he sells bags of shredded paper to a company, he is only 13 yrs old. if I had a paper shredder at my house this would help with his therapy.
I hate tax season but I have hired a bookkeeper finally. She has explained to me that as a self employed person I don’t need to file until June. (Shocked) I will still file before that though. Anyways, she is helping me get organized as a business. But I still have a lot to gather for her. It is still on me to save those receipts and also be more prudent. So I need a shredder for my new home office because I am often lackadaisical about shredding. My brother had his identity stolen in Toronto about 5 years ago – it was someone who lifted mail straight from his mailbox. But there are things we can all do to help protect against identity theft. One is shred the old papers.
I work from home so for both personal and business this would be ideal!
Having been a victim of identity theft TWICE (15 years apart) We try to be as careful as we can in this wireless electronic age – and my Honey/Hubby literally tears everything on paper up before he throws anything out (and expects me to do the same – I use a scissoers) – but both of us have very sore hands and ragged hands and fingers from doing this all the time (sometime I cheat and just mix the stuff in with VERY used kitty litter…)
Anyway – We would both be THRILLED to win this great prize!
I need it because I hate throwing out mail. It makes me nervous.
I need one of these in my house because it would help ensure any identifying information gets shredded safe from thieves!
I should probably get one of these considering most documents that are tossed get hand shredded and put in the garbage.
We need this, we use bankers boxes and then take sensitive documents to the fire pit lol
I’ve have my identity stolen TWICE – and it’s a real drag! I know this Fellowes Shredder can’t protect us from online or phone related thiefs – but it sure would be a great with all the mountain of paper we get/have the contain personal information that potentially could be misused… Right now we use our hands or scissors the crudely cut up/shred – but our hands and fingers ends up pretty shredded too after all the cutting and tearing! Thanks – great prize!
We’ve decided the only way we can ever get close to being modestly organized in this house we’ve lived in since we got married 22 years ago… is to bite the bullet and do a Spring Cleaning as if we were actually moving out – THAT thoroughly!
Among the most important aspect of this huge project will be throwing 20+ year of financial and other personal papers that really should be SHREDDED. We love to win this prize and the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
I had one years ago until it died. Now, I am more paranoid than ever of what personal documents go in there. We tend to keep a seperate pile and during the winter months burn what we can.
To shred all documents with our personal info!!
So I no longer need to cut up papers by hand…it’s rather annoying lol
I love shredding, I was devastated when my shredder broke haha
So I’m not a victim of identity fraud!
We have an old shredder and it continuously gets blocked up so I spend more time pulling bits of paper out of it than I do actually shredding!
I get rid of the pile up of papers in the desk.