do you shred your bills or throw them in the bin ????

That's a very good thing to do weemam, esp the important bills and documents. My hubby used to insist that I cut up such papers into small bits before trashing them and it was such a boring task..lol Finally we bought a shredder too a couple of months ago and now everything is 'fed' to the shredder which does its job beautifully. No more sitting with the scissors and a pile of papers again!

We have a recycling system in our town (as does most of the UK now). I take great joy in shredding all sorts of papers, not only bills and credit information, knowing that all those little threads of paper will go into a big compost bin and quickly become compost which will either go to help make our parks and public gardens look beautiful or may be purchased by the bag quite cheaply at the recycling centre in order to help people grow flowers and vegetables in their own gardens.

No I do not destroy my bills, I keep them as my records otherwise who ever they are coming from may say I did not pay them, as one day I received a bill after 7 years and of course I did not keep my bill and had to pay it again as I could not be sure if I had paid that particular bill. If I have to destroy anything I cut it into small pieces and make sure that nobody can tell what it was.

i used to shred my credit card bills after making the payments but ever since i got ripped off pretty bad i have developed the habit of keeping my old bills around! i maintain a file for each of my credit cards and always write the amount, the date and the cheque number thorough which i have made the payment on the bill! this way if i get some discripency i have something to fall back on and reconcile! I take special care to keep the files in a place where only i can reach them!

i also love knowing that once my things are shredded that no one can get their hands on them. it is so easy for thief's to be able to take your stuff and ruin your life. theres no need in taking chances like that

I use to throw them away too but now i'm cautious and think if someone snoops through my garbage they could actually pick up some very vital personal information about me, so i sit and rip them to peices or cut them up. I might look into getting a small shredder as I'm sure that would do a better job.

I keep my bills in yearly folders for five years, then I shred them. These days with all the identity theft going on one cannot be too careful. I also rip off the address labels of catalogs and magazines before I put them in the recycle bins.

Well I just through them in the Bin I always have done, as I have not heard anything so would it be a good Idea that I get a Shredder then?

I usually throw my bills in the trash. I do have a paper shredder but I do not use it. I am not sure why but I dont. I do think it is a good idea to use it though so you dont get in trouble with other people getting your information.

I just throw them in the bin. I don't have a shredder and don't have enough patience for shredding everything by hand. None of the bills or things I get in the mail are important and no one would get anything from it. I think that flushing them down the loo could clog the pipes up. It's good that he bought you a paper shredder. It would be much cheaper than unclogging the loo.

I just usually throw my bills in the bin. Then again I don't have that much bill anyways, as my mother pays most of the bills at home. I still can't relate with your fears.=D

We don't have a shredder yet, but I think that my mother would be very happy if we did. She doesn't even want us to throw away our mail with our name and address on it without tearing up the address first. I personally think that this is going a bit far, but it's so hard to keep arguing with her, so if I think that she's paying attention I make sure to tear it up before I throw it away, lol. But I do agree that making sure that bills with your personal info on them are torn up properly or shredded is a much safer way to live.

I can't believe you flushed them down the toilet !!, as you know i to am very cautous of all my receipts and any thing containing my details, i carefully rip the pages into little tiny tiny squares, and then i distribute them into different bags to go to the bins, if i have a bulk load i place in the bin thats got the cat litter !! dont think anyone would be so sad as to go through that, but i will be buying a shredder in the near future, it's all quite frightning really, mind you don't think i'd like to steal my identity...lol

It's high time I get myself a shredder. Yes I will shred everything except the payment slips that have the barcodes to be scanned by the payment machine during the payment. The slips do not have personal info but will also shred them eventually.

I have been shredding documents for at least the last 10 years .. I wore out the first shredder I bought .. and now I am just about ready to buy a new one .. they are so ridiculously cheap new compared to when I first bought one .. there are all kinds of shredders to Straight cut .. OK .. but the pieces can be put back together with just a little patience . cross cut which is what I have now .. and there is even a shredder than reduces documents to powder .. I'd love one of those .. but they are rather pricey still ..

I bought a shreader so we now use that all the time, you cant be too careful now a days can you?

My old bills and important papers (that I don't need anymore) get burned in the wood stove.. No chance of the wrong people getting their hands on these-- and stealing any info. I have never heard of anyone flushing them down the loo?? Is this the toilet? Just seems odd-- wouldn't they clog up the septic.

I know that when it comes to bills me & my other half personally will either shred extremely important documents or if we can, we will burn them. My other half used to never shred or burn his stuff. Neither of us likes that we have to do that, but in today's world with all of the identity theft, you have to be super-careful. I am very careful with receipts, as well as bills now that I check each one to make sure there is no personal information that someone can use. Ever since identity theft reared it's ugly head I've had to be even more cautious of keeping receipts than in the past because of this. I get really upset when I hear about people who have had their identity stolen through mail scams or things like that. I thought at the time that I should try to educate myself on the best ways to protect myself from identity theft after hearing those types of stories. I think that these people that steal people's identities also require severe punishment for what they do. It's one of those other crimes out there that people end up commiting, & they get nothing more than a slap on the wrist for it? I would like to get my hands on a paper shredder so we could get rid of some of the papers that we do have right now. I think after a year you should be able to dispose of those bills and be left with a clean slate for the rest of the year. We could burn them instead, but that can get silly in the middle of winter when the temperature is low. I think throwing the bills out in the trash can is most likely the worst decision a person could make if they were trying to keep their identity confidential. I don't like that anyone can just go and open up or go through whatever paperwork they find in a trash can behind your house or wherever else that paperwork could be. I think that a lot of the ways you can protect yourself from identity theft begins with just common sense things. It's not that hard to protect yourself from such a thing. All you need to do is dispose of the bills and receipts in a way that would make them completely unreadable by any criminal looking to cash in on your lapse in judgment. It could also help to think like a criminal in order to protect yourself. How would they go about stealing someone's identity and taking it for themselves? There are hundreds of different ways to look out for yourself when it comes to this sort of thing. In conclusion, I think that by throwing away your receipts you've basically sentenced yourself to the great possibility of identity theft. I think we all wouldn't want something like that to happen.. I know that I wouldn't, as well as don't so try the best to my ability to prevent things like this from happening! . . Thanks for allowing me to share! xx

My shredder is my best friend. I used to just throw my bills away too. But I started reading and hearing about how people would stoop so low as to go to the dump and go through the trash, and steal whatever information they could find so that they could get credit cards, etc. I shred everything now. But sometimes, I get a little carried away and have to get out the wire hanger and unjam the papers from the teeth.

We have a shredder now, too. Before I would rip the papers up and put them in different trash cans in the house, so that all the pieces to a document would not end up in the same bag. I would also make sure one of the bags was the one with the used cat litter in it. If someone wants to steal my identity, I'm going to make them WORK for it! :-)