I remember a time as a teenager we go through the neighbors trash just to see what we could find. This was at the local dump outside a small town, in northern California. People saw us and thought we were looking for old aluminium and copper to sell at our version of the recycling center, in 1968. In addition to the  aluminium and copper we found old love letters, adult magazines, and credit card numbers. Of course we only used what we found for our amusement.

Today, there are unethical people going though other people’s trash, before the garbage man comes to get information for identity theft. This could be a credit card offer, or a bill from a life insurance company, or even an electric bill. You see adding up these bits and pieces of information, along with the internet can yield enough information for identity theft.

Now to continue the series of this week about saving you money by being more secure. Today, I want to looking at shredders. Not the Shredder of Ninja Turtle fame.

I am talking about the shredders that take a document and cuts them into little pieces of paper. Shredders are not the perfect solution for making documents unreadable before throwing them in the trash. If you want to prevent people from really reading those documents, then to need to hire a document disposal service. However, a portable shredder is adequate for the average family or individual.

A good shredder may not totally prevent a thief from getting your information, but it will definitely make it much harder. You will never make it totally impossible to prevent identity theft, but you sure can make the job extremely hard.

There are two basic types of shredders. The first type is a straight shredder where paper is cut into thin strips the length of the paper being shredded. The second type is what is called a crosscut shredder. This is where the paper is cut in across as well as lengthwise.