Red Satchel

Red Satchel

Document Boxes are Central to the Plot

There’s a bit of mystique surrounding document boxes. They are the bane of UK Government Ministers’ lives, taking over at home, trashing family life. No UK Budget announcement is complete without the Chancellor the Exchequer holding up his battered red satchel, surely one of the world’s most famous document boxes, for the TV cameras. There are also plenty of films and books where document boxes containing crucial information have been central to the plot. But what of the more humdrum document boxes which most of us need to contain the stuff of our lives? Every good home should boast at least one of the modern selection of document boxes currently on the market, keeping all essential paperwork tidily in one place. Passports, electricity bills, medical records, bank statements and birth certificates should all live in document boxes, preferably strong ones with a lock. It may sound obvious, but don’t forget that paperwork filed alphabetically can be retrieved in a hurry, and is much less likely to get lost.

 

Most families accumulate so much paperwork that cardboard document boxes aren’t always enough and can quite soon fray at the edges. You may well want to think about a studier, steel version. This is particularly important in the event of a fire, flood or other catastrophe. It is always a good idea to go through your document boxes regularly, probably at least every six months, de-cluttering old papers and running them through the shredder. As a general rule of thumb, stuff that is more than a year old should be ditched. This means that, if you do have a lightweight cardboard version, it won’t be bursting at the seams. Again, it may sound obvious, but make sure the family knows where the box is kept. You may prefer to keep some documents, like house deeds, in a bank, building society or some other form of safe storage, where the document boxes are in a different class altogether.

 

Many people make document boxes out of the humble shoebox, admittedly probably one of the planet’s most versatile storage solutions. Often, these contain letters and momentos from a love affair, lost love or maybe just a happier time. These can be particularly precious and can include cinema ticket stubs, Valentine and other cards, matchbooks or other small freebies from a favoured restaurant or hotel. The danger is the box can be used to induce melancholy and yearning for the past, although on the plus side it can be used as an aid to rekindle happier thoughts. Care should therefore be taken when opening these kinds of document boxes. Amazingly, some people even use shoe boxes as document boxes for small business accounts. End of year accounts can provide more than the shoebox full of receipts, however. One ‘researcher’ (people research these things?) reported that such boxes have, allegedly, been known to contain an errant love letter or indeed photograph. So, due care and attention should be taken when handing a shoe box to a third party for business purposes. They may lack the sentimental appeal of a shoebox, but sturdier document boxes are worth their weight in gold.

 

About the Author

Since we started in 2004, we have been sending out thousands of parcels every week to homeowners and businesses within the UK and Southern Ireland. Http://www.bigdug.co.uk

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