The Reason We Moved

Above is a photo giving you all Reason # 1 why I wanted to move out of the townhouse. This was my computer room. The place where I spent most of my time in the house. The stress factor related with coming to this mess every day was weighing on me to a degree of insanity.
There've been numerous times where I snapped at my husband just because I could no longer tolerate to look at this.

I know some of you cannot even begin to imagine how a normal person can let their house get to this condition, but in 11 years we managed to let it go this bad.

This stressor in my life was unbearable until I finally came to the realization that the main reason this room is like this is because I have no time to clean it. Of course, who has time when you're wasting three hours of your day commuting back and forth to work, then you're spending another hour trying to calm down from the commute. By the time we got to the weekend, we had no energy to take care of our house.

The solution was to move closer to work.

Well, that was a year ago. Some of you may be curious as to what my computer room looks like right now. Well, here ya go...


Ok, ok, yes, I get it. This makes no sense to you. But seriously, this is fantastic accomplishment. You see, all these papers on the floor are actually piled by topic. These are only three years worth of bills. The other 8 years are in the boxes you see on the right. Tomorrow I'll have only one more year's worth of bills to lay out on the floor: 2007.

Then...

Hmmm...then?

Oh yeah, then I get online and ask you guys - ok, my legal all knowing friends, for how long do you keep your bills?

Keep in mind, I had tremendous difficulties throwing away the ADT (house alarm) bills for the townhouse - so be gentle with your advice.

One major problem I'm already seeing is the Cingular bills. Those mf bills are about 20 pages long each! It's almost as long as the script to my phone conversations per month. They take so much space, it's just a crime against the environment.

Another issue I'm seeing - Blue Cross Blue Shield has GOT to learn to stop sending a piece of paper for EVERY SINGLE medical charge. They need to consolidate the charges per month and send me ONE statement per month instead of the 70 pieces of paper I have from this past year.

Before you admonish me for saving bills for so many years, I'll have you know that the Class Action lawsuit against VISA/MasterCard and AMEX go all the way back to 1996. And unlike most normal people who will get $25 out of this lawsuit, I intend on submitting every single bill I have from my once-twice a year trips overseas. I've been upset about those exchange rate finance charges for YEARS and kept those bills just in case someone ever has the brains to file a lawsuit. I can't wait to find out how much this lawsuit will get me.
Last time I participated in a class action lawsuit I got $500 from Toshiba. That bought my first digital camera back in 1999.

I love lawyers!

By the way, this entire cleaning effort on the floor of my computer room is because I started looking for all those credit card bills. I figured while I was doing it, I might as well pile everything else appropriately.

But NOW what?