A graphic of a messy table full of files and pile of paperwork
Episode 143 – Safeguarding your personal details

In this episode, we are chatting about how to protect and safeguard your personal details and sensitive data. It can be quite tough when every envelope, parcel and letter often has our details on. We suggest the ways that we go about protecting your details such as using an ID roller, power shredder or outsourcing shredding to a local company.
Episode 355 – Your future self will thank you for it – how extra decluttering effort really pays off
Episode 354 – Feeling in control when going through a divorce with Tamsin Caine
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hope podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:31  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 143 of the Declutter Hub Podcast.

Lesley  0:36  
I'm Ingrid. And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:38  
If you have clutter, I want to sort it out. This is the show for you. Now in today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about safeguarding your personal details. This sounds very serious, Lesley, this sounds very serious. 

Lesley  0:54  
It's very serious, of course, but it's something that a lot of people really struggle with and forms a barrier, doesn't it to getting the job done? Because people are nervous about doing a big paperwork, declutter because they fear the worst about what's going to happen to their personal details. So that's why we wanted to talk about different options didn't wait for safeguarding your personal details, some decisions that needs to be made, and certain products that you can use to help you along the way.

Ingrid  1:21  
Yes, because I think we first need to talk about what our personal details I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is things with a name, and an address. But it goes further than that, doesn't it?

Lesley  1:35  
Yeah, it could be your name. It could be your address, it could be your date of birth, it could be financial data, account numbers, all of those things are sensitive data. And that stuff can be stolen carnate

Ingrid  1:48  
Yes. And it really once people steal your identity, it can really become an absolute minefield. And then they can get mobile phones and extra show your your bank details and it gets really, really bad. So when we are decluttering, we need to think about how can we make sure that we minimise that risk? And what can we do ourselves to safeguard our personal details. And I think that's important to talk about in this podcast. Because if there's decision making involved, isn't there?

Lesley  2:22  
Yeah. And ordinarily, when we're just doing standard day to day decluttering of paperwork, you know, maybe a few pieces of paper a week, it doesn't become a huge deal really does it. But when we embark on a huge paperwork, declutter, so you might be talking about years and years worth of documentation, you really have to be careful, and you have to make some big decisions before you start that project.

Ingrid  2:44  
Yeah, and I think it's also I think the decision needs to be made. Do you want to shred everything? Or are you like, well, people know my name and know my address, you can even find that on Google Maps, you can find it on the computer, I'm not going to worry about a letter, which is to name an address, or I'm only going to worry about financial things with financial statements and financial and documents and with dates of birth. Or I want to shred absolutely every last little piece of paperwork that has any type of detail on about me. Before you

Lesley  3:18  
get started on a big paperwork declutter, you really have to think through, don't you? What do I consider to be sensitive data because your name and address, for example, can be quite easily found on the internet. So many, many people think I'm not too worried about my name and address. I'm just worried about more sensitive data than that. That's entirely up to you. There's no right or wrong way of doing this. But it's something that you need to think about because ultimately, shredding destroying confidential data takes a lot of time in a paperwork project. And so we really need to have a plan before we start, we love a plan, don't we? Ingrid? We love to plan and prepare. And this is part of a paperwork projects. What's going to happen? What do I consider to be sensitive data?

Ingrid  4:02  
Exactly. So when you've decided you're going to declutter your paperwork, and you've decided, okay, I want to shred stuff, then you need to think about, okay, what is the volume? are we actually talking 10 pieces of paper here? That's not a difficult decision, or is it actually a filing cabinet or box files full of paperwork? How much volume is going on in this project? Can you actually do it yourself? Do you have a shredder? Do you need to possibly buy an idea roller? Or do you think oh my word. I've got a hell home office. It's got to be bags and maxvill I need to I can never do this all by myself. I actually need to hire somebody to do this for me. And I probably need to outsource this shredding to make this project even feasible to start tackling.

Speaker 3  4:57  
Yeah, and so you've spoken about a few things During good, I think we need to take a step back. And we need to explain these things because a lot of our listeners won't even be aware that these kinds of things exist. So let's talk first about the ID roller. So we would use an ID roller with very small volumes of paperwork, wouldn't we? So that kind of week to week decluttering of paperwork, 1020 pages, something that's completely manageable. And we use what we love something called an ID roller, you in particular love an ID roller Ingrid, don't you? Yeah, love your little ID rollers. So do you want to explain what that actually is and how it works?

Ingrid  5:35  
Lesley, honestly, they're brilliant. And I actually, I actually buy several and I can give them away to people because I'm like, have you tried this idea roll and it's like, so cool. And actually, I have a good working shredder. So I mainly use my ID roller for when I get boxes in when you've got the stickers on the for example, Amazon boxes or row the packages that arrive. And you think oh, there's my address and my details are on this sticker. How am I going to get this off and you just take your idea roll and use zip over it. And boom, it's gone. Your details magically kind of disappear. You can buy them and we've we actually we we like I like him so much that we've actually put them on our products we love page haven't realised yet. Like we need to get this idea rolling. This is amazing. People need to know about this. So if you look on declutter hub.com forward slash products, you can see what an ID roller is. And you can buy them as one or a package of three. You can even now buy them when you have these little refill cartridges so you can top up the ink so it stays like properly rollable to use for many, many papers and books just to come. But it's absolutely brilliant. And you basically wipe out your details you can see how I'm excited about this I

Lesley  6:55  
am I can I feel like you should be on commission from the ID roller company to sell their wares for them. But yeah, basically it puts a layer of ink over an address and so that becomes completely illegible. That's the way it works. So it's a quick roll in function that's going to roll over that address. So when I D roll is fantastic because you say for boxes for packages where it's difficult to shred, you know, you can't shred a plastic package or a box really. And you spend time faffing around trying to get the label off. It's a real faff. And so it's definitely worth the investment. So as Ingrid said, we do have that on our products we love page. So go take a look at that. Now the next option for kind of mid range volumes, let's say Ingrid would be a shredder. Now. There's different types of Shredder, there's a rubbish Shredder, and we all have had experience of what that looks like. And then there's an amazing shredder that's going to cost hundreds if not 1000s of pounds. And then there's one in the middle that's going to do the job. So we love a fellow's 60 CS Cross Cut Shredder. Now what does the cross cut shredder do differently to other shredders? Ingrid.

Ingrid  8:05  
Well, first of all, Lesley, I completely agree with you. There are shredders out there that are just so awful. If you have an awful Shredder, uh, you know, it just give up because they just after five pages, that things get stuck, and then they overheat. And then you're like trying to wit with some sort of pen or something, tried to get the little papers out of the little mechanism on the inside. And it's just a total nightmare. Have I made this mistake to buy a cheap shredder? Yes, I have. Yes, I have Lesley, I will put my hand up and go I made that mistake. I thought Yeah, I really need to do shredding. This was many, many years ago. I need to do the shredding because people started talking about privacy and about people stealing your data and I need to get a shredder. So what did I do? I went to a shop bought a cheap shredder. I thought I'm sorted. That was a big mistake. And of course we learned from our mistakes. So the second time I thought I think I need to spend some more money because I am just tired of trying to get little stuck papers out of a shredder when you shred like five pages. So yes. As shredder and putting a bit of money towards it. I know exactly. We're not talking hundreds of pounds, probably 7080 90 pounds you you are really sorted. There are a couple of good brands we have one that we really, really like. Again, it's on declutter hub.com on the products we love. There's one we really really liked because we know it works really well. So what happens in my old cheap Shredder, when you put a page in, you would just get these strips of paper. So a clever person could still put all the strips together and read the data. So then they kind of went okay, we need to build machines that actually Cross Code thought and that's when you get these tiny little bits of paper. That I mean, nobody would want to do that. Unless you may be like, I don't know, a spy or something. Let's

Lesley  10:14  
see much I can imagine spending time putting together pieces of shredding. Yeah. Well, I think it's really interesting actually. Because really, the bottom line is who wants to go out and spend 100 pounds or 70 pounds on a shredder, it's just not something that you really want to invest in. But if you've fallen foul of a shredder, and I bet 90% of the people listen to this podcast, like, I know, it overheats, they get stuck there with your knife and a product through your fear for your life that you're gonna get electrocuted. And then if you've got a small one, you've got to empty it every five minutes. It's just like a shredder can be the bane of your life. carnate. So we firmly believe if you really want to safeguard your data, and you want to do it in a way that's not going to completely frustrate you day after day. Just invest in a decent shredder. Yeah, it's definitely worth it. And this shredder is gonna be used for mid size operations like say, a shredder will say to you of this will take 10 pages at a time our advice would be never put 10 pages in because it goes then it gets stuck. Even though it says 10 pages, it really doesn't mean 10 pages it means we can just about do 10 pages, but I'm gonna do a go slow. So whatever the number is on your shredder, sometimes it's six sometimes it's 10. Have it and then yeah, go much faster. Yeah, honestly, trust us. We do loads of paperwork projects. And you know, when we go into a house, and we're like, no, please tell us that's not the shredder that we've got to work with. So I know we've got one quick, quick clip, literally just do a whole half an hour podcast on how terrible shredders are, well, we need to move on. So if you've got a mid size, if it's a manageable amount that you can shred, then use a shredder perfect. One piece of advice that I would do if you're doing a big paperwork project is do your paperwork, declutter put everything in a box and then shred later because it will really slow you down in your paperwork project. So don't try and shred as you go. Unless it's very, very small volumes, you know, I'm talking about a big kind of paperwork project that is going to spend days here that's going to have big volumes of paper where you're taking loads out of a filing cabinet that definitely needs to be done. The shredding needs to be done separately, doesn't it Ingrid and not as part of the project because literally, it's rare to get stuck. And then it breaks and all the things that we spoken about that are freaking me out now. And so definitely leave the shredding until later. But there is another option, isn't there Ingrid?

Ingrid  12:47  
Yes, for sure. Lesley, you can also decide to outsource it. So if you're doing 20 years of paperwork, and you know, you've got a whole basement or loft or attic, or a room full of paperwork. And it's years and years, from company files to paperwork from family members that you've ended up with, and you're gonna go right, I'm going to do a massive project, my Shredder, whatever size or by is never going to cope, I'm going to be your shipping shredding for like a year, outsource it, get your local confidential waste company on board. Just Google it confidential waste in my local area. And I'm sure there are several companies that will pop up. And then you can go right, I'm going to hire a company to shred this paperwork for me. This is not as expensive as you think it might be. So a lot of people think, Oh, my word that's going to cost me hundreds and hundreds of pounds. Of course it event depends on the volume. But if you've just got a couple of bags, it's not gonna cost the world and you're going to save yourself loads and loads of time. Definitely get a local company because of course you know that it's amazing. And they are around they are around. Normally they give you a couple of options. Do you want us to collect it? Take it with us and shred it on our sites where we are and then send you a certificate of destruction? Or is the data that's sensitive that you actually want to see the paperwork go in the shredder in front of your house? They've got the extracts that shred on site and you can see it going and then you know, so I think it really depends on the sensitivity of your paperwork. And if you've got lots of patient files or files with paperwork, financials, etc. That's maybe when you think okay, I need to invest some money and have it shredded on site because it will be more expensive.

Lesley  14:51  
Yeah, so even domestically if I'm doing a big paperwork job with the client. If it's at all possible, we will always outsource that shredding because we don't want people to give up on the decluttering, because of the shredding, they say it's a huge pain, isn't that? Yeah, it's just like, I would anybody want to do that. I mean, you can give it to your kids to do with, well, depending on where your kids are, you don't want to lose any fingers here. So, but you can, you can get somebody else to do that you can do shredding, while you're sitting watching TV at night, those kinds of things. But if you can outsource to a confidential waste company, then go for it. The other benefit really of outsourcing to a confidential waste company, they tend to give you a certain amount of bag. So the one that I use is like you can have eight bags, and that's eight kind of mail sacks of stuff for about 6070 pounds, you know, it's about 100 American dollars, that's not that much money really for the amount of time that you, you know, to shred, eight huge bags of paper would take forever, and it's definitely worth it in my eyes. But the nice thing about that is not many domestic situations will have eight bags worth of paperwork. And the nice thing about it is if you outsource that you don't need to then take out envelopes and other bits of paper that have not got confidential data on them. You can chuck it all in and they'll shred the lot. And so that's quite nice, because that saves you again, that saves you time because you don't need to sort confidential from nonconfidential, if that makes sense. So another benefit of using, I think we'd get we're getting the point across it, if you can outsource this, you absolutely need to do this and trust as we've done hundreds and hundreds of paperwork jobs. And it just is a game changer, isn't it? Ingrid? Yeah,

Ingrid  16:36  
I think so too. And I think it makes a paperwork job is is quite hard to do. Anyway, you know, it's one of the hardest jobs to do because a stack of paperwork is lots of decisions already, as it is, you know, is it important? Do I need to keep it? Do I need to state where am I going to put it? Do I need to either recycle it or shredded, so many decisions. So if you can make the shredding part easy for yourself, I think you'll give that gift to your of time to yourself.

Lesley  17:10  
So those really are the three there's loads of options out there in terms of safeguarding your identity. But those are certainly the ones that we advocate. So an ID roller for very small volumes, a shredder, ideally a cross cut shredder and a decent shredder for mid volume, mid size volumes. And then if you've got large volumes to outsource to a shredding company, who will either shred on site, or will take it away to their site and send you in this country, what is called a Certificate of destruction, to show that your identity has been safeguarded.

Ingrid  17:43  
Now, there might be some listeners who think hmm, but I burned my paperwork. So if that's you, if you're maybe have got an oil drum in your garden, or if you've got a fire that you do or something. Maybe that's the solution for you to to get rid of that paperwork you no longer want. I mean, I could not do that. Let's see, because I live in the middle of London. I don't think my neighbours are going to be really happy with me if I do that in the middle of my garden. But I know there's trouble people are like, Yeah, I just bring my paperwork. It's fine.

Lesley  18:17  
Yeah, Burnett, certainly, if that's something that's allowed in your area is certainly very, very helpful, isn't it? Now, there are other methods that people use, which I find a little bit dubious in terms of the amount of effort that they take, but we thought it was worth mentioning. So some people talk about putting paperwork into a bath in its entirety, and then kind of allowing it to soak and then removing it from the bath and all the income is gone from it. Now that strikes me as a lot of work. Does that not strike you Ingrid? It's a lot of work. That's a real faff, isn't it? I have

Ingrid  18:51  
read it people do this. And I always kind of go really do people do that? Do you throw it in a bath and then put it on the water? And so it all gets one clump and then I'm thinking how do you get it gets really heavy? And how do you get that then from your bath into a bag and um, it's find it a bit mind boggling. So I've been we wanted to mention it because we know there's people out there do it. But I could not imagine myself doing that literally

Lesley  19:18  
mean either. If you are listening to this podcast and you think yes, I love the bath soaking method, please do let us know because we've heard about it. It's like one of those urban myths maybe isn't it but we want to know about it. We want to know whether your paperwork soaking person to safeguard your identity. Let's talk about once you've it's like say that you're doing a shredding job. Yeah. Where can the shredding go because this is another barrier as well. That stops us in our tracks sometimes. And so we can only talk about what happens locally here in the UK can't wait. But what do you do with your shredding? Ingrid?

Ingrid  19:58  
Well, I put my shredding In my paper recycling, but I bet they do kind of advise you know what the problem is literally, every council and every waste collection service is different, even here in the UK. So you really have to look at your local council and figure out, can I put my shredding in my paper recycling? Or do they advise to put it like in a box or in a cereal box, so all the little bits and bobs don't fly away everywhere, when they actually empty that recycling bin. So I normally put it in some sort of paper bag, or I am very careful that indeed, when I bring it outside to my recycle bin, it doesn't fly all over the place, because especially when it's windy, windy, it can. It can fly everywhere. So you have to figure this out locally to where you are, what can you do with this?

Lesley  20:56  
I don't think that the reason why you can't put it into the bin is because of it flying away. I think the reason is when it gets to the machine and the recycling machine at the recycling plant, the shredded paper is too small to be processed at the other end. And so that's not the case everywhere. Because there's obviously different types of machines, isn't there in different councils that deal with in different ways. But I certainly know that you need to check in your local area, whether or not you can put shredded paper into your paper bin.

Ingrid  21:25  
Yeah, yeah, I think definitely. And somebody had a really cool a solution for the shredded paper, didn't it? Allegedly, because they actually brought it to a pet sanctuary, because they had guinea pigs that needed shredding paper or something. But I thought it was really cool.

Lesley  21:40  
Yeah, exactly. So I think you know, because if you if you think about it, once you shred paper and you empty it, it kind of becomes almost like a bed animal bedding, doesn't it? You know, small animal bedding then I guess. And so I think it was guinea pigs or rabbits. I'm not sure somebody who's got guinea pigs or rabbits will let us know. But things like that. So that could be an option as well. If you can't put that into your paper bin, because it's quite hard then isn't it to put it into your non recyclable waste if you're not allowed to put in your paper and you feel bad about it? Because particularly if you're doing a big paperwork project, because that is a lot of waste. So yes, how exciting to talk about confidential waste and shredding. Ingrid.

Ingrid  22:20  
Yes, I have. I have one more question Lesley. Do you shred with or without staples?

Lesley  22:27  
Well, I shred with staples because my shredder will take staples. So that's another thing that you look at that you need to look at when you're buying a shredder, isn't it? Does it accept staples? Because that's a big one as well. Because if you've got to remove all the staples, then that's another faff isn't it. So it's all about just making things easy for yourself. And sometimes it's just worth that extra investment in a shredder, isn't it?

Ingrid  22:49  
Yeah, for sure. Show listeners. Are you feeling inspired to shred now? Or are you thinking to yourself, hmm, I'm actually planning a big paperwork project. This was like the perfect timing for this podcast because I now need to think about my shredding situation or my idea of oil or situation or I need to Google my local shredding company. So I know what my plan is going to be because it's all part of the preparation of a project. So that's it for this episode. We hope you've all enjoyed listening and are inspired to take action. And we appreciate you listening today. So if you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with others. Maybe your friends and family would love our show too. And on our show notes page on our website, you can find all the sharing buttons. If you want more handy tips and advice from Lesley and I. You can find this in lots of places. We have a fab supportive Facebook group called the declutter hub community, which is a great starting point. You can also find us on Instagram we have a Facebook page. We have our own YouTube channel as well. Just search for at declutter hub. Take a look at members Dodie clutter hub.com To find out more about our declutter hub membership. If you don't want to miss the next podcast episode, subscribe to the declutter hub podcast and it will pop into notifications each Friday. So thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next time.

Outro  24:18  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutterhub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.
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