Scan and Shred

This weekend, I plan on organizing my desk at home, throwing out any old, unused items, creating new folders and re-organizing existing files.  It gives me a clean slate for what the year brings, and hopefully I can keep up with it throughout the year.  I liken it to doing my closet, except you have to hold onto your financial documents for a lot longer than your unworn, dated clothing!  In the office, I have no choice but to follow the rules set by the accounting department.  However, at home, I want to streamline my life and drawers by scanning and shredding!  I decided to do a little research and found the article How to Buy a Scanner to be very helpful.  It made me realize I have a short list of requirements and I was happy to see that there are lots of options for function, size and price.  Top of my list was a feeder for multiple pages, back and front scanning as a bonus and space is limited so I really wanted a small unit.  I got some direction from The 10 Best Scanners and then did some searching of my own:

Epson WorkForce GT-1500 Document Scanner $229

Canon imageFORMULA Portable Document Scan-tini $259

 Visioneer Scanner Docking Station STROBE 500 $328

NeatDesk Desktop Scanner and Digital Filing System $399 

I really like the NeatDesk (why is it that I always gravitate to the most expensive?) but I need to read a little more about each one before I take the plunge and purchase. In the past, I've found that you need to buy a better shredder because in my experience, the less expensive models jam and break easily and need to be replaced more frequently.  I have a similar model (pictured below) from Staples and it works perfectly for our needs:

Staples 16 Sheet Micro Cut Shredder

If you have a great scanner that you would like to share with me, please leave a comment.  I cannot wait to start scanning my recipes, bills, and all the pages I tear out of magazines!