Backing up your memories
Record keeping is getting more and more digital. These days, most of our important documents and records reside on a computer somewhere. For those of us with some computer skills, that is not a bad thing. When we began to go through the stuff in our basement, we found boxes and boxes of old papers that had to be shredded. Traditionally, we have been told to keep financial records for seven years, in case the IRS should audit us. In practice, today, the IRS knows exactly what we earned and how much tax we paid. Once we confirmed that with our electronic tax return this year, we got our refund in a week! Digitization has allowed us to cut the paper clutter. When we went to New Zealand, all our travel documents were delivered digitally in the form of an app. It worked brilliantly, ensuring that we never misplaced receipts and reservations, and had all our information at our fingertips on that multi-purpose device of choice: the smart phone. Our pho...
