Off-Grid Shredder

Back when we had a house, we also had a home office, with a paper shredder. We used the shredder a lot. Despite our ongoing efforts to switch to paperless communications whenever possible, we still found too many sensitive documents in our mailbox.

Our banks continuously tried to get us to borrow money by sending us real, usable, paper checks that only needed a signature to produce an expensive transaction. Our doctors and insurance companies frequently sent us things containing a lot of our private information. And a few times a year our web hosting provider would send us information about domain registration that we paid extra specifically for them to keep private.

We shredded all of this stuff, and a lot more.

While we were busy getting ready to move out of our house, we let all this stuff accumulate, waiting for a day when we would have an hour or so for a badly needed shredfest. Of course, that day and that hour never arrived. We left our house for the last time carrying a big box of stuff that needed shredding.

We hauled that box around on our travels for awhile. Figured we would find the time to take it to one of those mailbox-shipping-signmaking stores that would happily shred all of our sensitive documents for a reasonable fee. And we never managed to find the time for that chore, either.

We left our house for the last time carrying a big box of stuff that needed shredding.

These are the kinds of annoying problems we often talk about while enjoying sunsets, cocktails, and campfires.

It took us way too long to realize that a campfire is an excellent tool for destroying documents. Now we call it our off-grid shredder.

We spent one especially gratifying evening joyfully burning old bills, statements, and a huge collection of unused, unwanted, paper checks from long-closed bank accounts. It was the kind of moment you experience when you finally manage to check something off your nagging to-do list that has been weighing you down for what seems like forever. Like cleaning out the garage. Or the rain gutters.

We don’t miss having a garage, or rain gutters.