Normally having the urge to splurge with your credit card is a bad thing. However, every now and then it’s not a bad idea to buy yourself something new. A shredder, for example, is an excellent and worthwhile expense (and small enough that you can charge it and pay it back quickly without having to pay interest!).

Let’s talk about different kinds of shredders and why you need them:

Types of Shredders

Price-wise, shredders can run the gamut. You can find cheap models for less than $20 and you can find shredders costing hundreds of dollars. Why the big price differences? Different shredders do different things, and they offer different levels of security.

A low-end shredder generally can only shred a couple of sheets of paper at a time. It will create long shreds / strands of paper, slicing the sheets into small columns. These cheap shredders might seem like a good value if you’re on a budget or don’t have a lot to shred, but they might give you a false sense of security. It isn’t that difficult to piece strands of paper back together.

Higher-end shredders are generally larger, and they can accommodate more sheets of paper in a single shred (some will even shred CDs if you’re worried about getting rid of digital document backups).

The better models won’t just shred your papers into strips. They’ll create small confetti instead (tiny little squares because paper is shredding in both directions). The resulting confetti is much more difficult to piece back together, giving you added security from identity thieves who might want access to your personal information.

Why You Need a Shredder

Shredders aren’t just for business use. It’s a good idea to keep one around your home as well. Why? Most people don’t save their financial records forever (or they might maintain digital records and want to eventually get rid of their paper files to save space).

When you get rid of these financial papers, like your old credit card statements or even credit card offers that include your full name and address, you don’t want potential thieves being able to access your information.

Shredding those papers is the easiest way to make them unreadable to a third party. While identity theft can be a high-tech crime these days, in its earliest form it was a result of people stealing personal and financial documents from the trash of others. It can still happen today.

Keep your information secure. Shred all unwanted credit card documents before disposing of them. It’s a simple and cost-effective step to take, and it can go a long way towards making you an unattractive mark.