It pays to be organized

For me, it would have paid five hours of time spent searching through eight bags of papers, pictures, magazines and miscellaneous crap, for two check registers that we needed for our taxes. Bags that had been sitting in a closet, waiting for the day that I'd have time to go through these things, toss and file. Today was not the day that I had time to do this.

Going though these bags of crap yielded me:

• 5 bags of garbage
• 4 Nordstrom gift cards
• 1 Gymboree gift card
• 1 Peet's Coffee card
• $40 in cash
• 5 books of stamps
• Certificate for free portrait sitting, expiring in May
• Certificate for one hour golf lesson, expires in April
• Certificate for swim lessons, already expired
• 2 books of Ferry Tickets
• 3 other important documents for our taxes
• One of the two missing check registers
• One and a half more hours of time piecing together who we wrote checks contained in missing check register to, based on dates and amounts alone

So when they say it pays to be organized, they are not kidding.