Ever since I started working in my late teens, I have saved all of my federal and state income tax returns. That’s over 40 years of filing documents, financial records, receipts, and other supporting materials. Today, I used the paper shredder at work to destroy all but the last seven years’ worth of supporting documents. I decided there was no value in continuing to store these in our new house where we are trying to downsize everything. I could not bring myself to shred the actual returns but that will probably make sense at some point. Pictured above are two waist-high trash bins of five that I filled to the top with shredded paper.