I need to give credit where credit is due for today’s box.

Box 36: Sunday, Feb. 5

CONTENTS: Over the last decades, Diane has saved us thousands of dollars — and, perhaps, picked up a hobby — by carefully perusing all the credit-card offers we received in the mail and choosing zero-interest offers for balance transfers. Of course, one way to ensure you receive a plenitude of credit card offers is by responding to just one of them, so she rarely was at a loss for new offers to consider. After a balance was transferred, we rarely if ever would use the credit cards — in fact, in some cases, the credit cards never made it out of the envelope in which they arrived. And those credit cards eventually went into this box, along with other bills and various other documents that in some cases dated back more than a decade. (Also in this box, oddly enough, were our tickets from that Branford Marsalis concert in Corvallis a few years ago.)

DISPOSITION: Half of this box goes to the recycling bin and half goes to the shredding box. It takes a little bit of time to go through a box like this, because you want to be sure that you’re shredding any document that shows your full account number, even if it’s in an account that’s been closed. Of course, you’ll want to destroy any credit cards as well. (If you’re wondering, we pulled out 41 separate cards, all expired, from this box.)