What to know about shredding
Shred Day Frazee 2024 is on September 17th!
It’s everyone’s favorite piece of mail. The monthly bank statement! When was the last time you opened up that statement? If you have digital banking odds are you look at your balance way more often and you don’t need to have them mailed to you every month. If you don’t look at the statement, or just give it a quick look, what are you doing with it? Are you just tossing it in the trash? If so, your personal information could be compromised and someone could steal your bank account information. Don’t let that happen. Keeping those statements for a year is smart but then you need to dispose of them, how? By shredding them! Destroying those documents into tiny strips of paper is the best way to keep your information safe and secure. Another way is to have those statements sent electronically. Don’t ever worry about a paper copy being compromised or worrying about destroying the paper copy correctly. E-Statements are safe, secure way to keep track of your bank account information.
Other paper documents that should be shredded yearly include:
- Old ID’s
- Old Debit and Credit Cards
- Medical information older than 1 year
- Tax information older than 7 years
- Documents with personal information (social security number, address, full name)
Getting into good shredding habits can make a huge difference in protecting your identity and keeping you safe from people who want to do harm. Some of the best practices are to keep your documents in a safe, separate location. One place to house documents you intend to keep and another will house documents that will be shredded after a year.
Think of shredding documents like checking a smoke alarm. Every year set aside a day to go through your sensitive documents and decide what needs to be destroyed and what should be kept. Once you decide what can be destroyed, do it correctly and have them shredded! Questions on what needs to be shredded or what should be destroyed? Ask our personal bankers!