Being from another country, this idea may be out to lunch as far as the U.S. is concerned, but for those in Canada, they may need to keep a record of regular or occasional payouts made by mutual funds, which payouts must be considered income in the year received. If their mutual fund makes payouts in cash, those amounts are added to income in the year received, and taxed then, and that is the end of it. But with many mutual funds, they tell us of the amounts declared as income year by year - but those amounts are re-invested. When one sells an asset, one must account for the capital gain, i.e. deduct the cost of purchase from the amount realized on sale to learn the amount of the gain, on part of which one is taxable in the year of sale. When I bought a stock that pays dividends, usually they are paid in cash, so I must declare them as income in the year received and pay tax on them ... but the amounts paid out are not added to the asset. When I sell such a stock, the total amount invested is the amount that they cost me in the first place, so I deduct that amount from the amount realized when I sold them, to find the capital gain, on which I am taxed in the year of sale. Some stocks allow me to re-invest the dividends to purchase more stock (sometimes at a discounted price). When I choose to do that, when I sell the stocks, the amount that they cost me is not only the amount of the original purchase, but includes the various amounts reinvested over the years. Which means that I must have a record of all of those transactions, including each of the amounts renvested, in order to calculate the cost price(s) to deduct from the proceeds of sale, in order to calculate the capital gain. If I neglect to do so, and claim only the amount of the original purchase, I lose the credit for all of those amounts invested later, on which I paid tax at the time, so I need to pay tax on those reinvested payouts again, thus pay tax twice on those amounts. For example, I bought a stock 44 years ago, that has paid dividends for each one of those years ... which was received in cash, so I dealt with those amounts at the time, but they did not buy any more of that stock directly, so they have no effect on the amount that I paid for those stocks. If I had had some of those dividends reivested, I'd have needed to have kept track of all of those reinvested amounts, in order to calculate my actual total cost, thus my capital gain. As many mutual fund owners choose to have their payouts reinvested at the time, to buy more funds, they need to keep track of each of those amounts, to calculate their actual cost of the asset. Sometimes brokers or management companies keep track of those amounts, or order to calculate the average cost per share ... but it is risky to count on such records having been kept ... or being complete (especially if funds were merged with others, as often happens, especially with funds that have a bad growtth record). Lose those records ... and you may well pay tax twice of those reinvested amounts. ole joyful

Thanks everyone for chiming in. So, this is what I decided. I will test self clean again once the technician gets it working again. Reasons include: 1) so far, even though Whirlpool does have an upgraded blower for my model, they have not authorized that for my oven. Knowing that I have a known-to-be inferior part bugs me. 2) I lived without an oven for years, and now having a wonderful cooktop and countertop toaster oven, I can survive a while if the oven stays out of order for a while. 3) I'll have more confidence in the oven if it does survive one or two self clean cycles. After that, I might just stop using the feature esp. if I'm approaching the end of the warranty. 4) If the oven dies after three repairs, the lemon law kicks in. I guess I'll get a refund then. But to be honest, I have no idea if there is another oven that's reliable out there that can fit in my cut out, not to mention match somewhat the microwave oven that was installed in the cutout above. I'll worry about it when it comes to it. Oh, some of you suggested: test the self clean when the tech is still around. He suggested I do not. Because if the oven dies again, it's considered part of the same repair, which will delay the onset of the lemon law. So, wait until he is gone and has closed the case, I can test again. Thought I should share that knowledge with others. I know (after started looking into the issue) that self clean puts a lot of stress on ovens, and many don't survive, but many do as some users testified in the thread. I honestly think that in general, the Ikea/Whirlpool models are inferior to others because so far, even after I asked the question explicitly on IkeaFans forum, I have not seen a single user coming forward and said that had success with the oven and its self clean feature.

As one who often cleans "house"...there's no perfect "yes" or "no" answer to your question. "Yes" you can do it if you examine the contents of each folder and know your system well enough to recognize whether you may need the info contained therein sometime in the future. Some of those old computer files contain old info...or old programs...that are still referred to and needed by your current system to function the way you want it to. Old photo files...old apps...etc. Have I discarded old files? Yes...selectively and without regret. "No" if you're not absolutely sure what's in those files and whether your system...or you...may need the info contained therein at some future point. Generally...I agree with Fudd and azinoh. If you don't need the space then leave well enough alone. If you need the space...proceed with caution.

We have an assortment of freezers. Thinking the 40+ year old giant Montgomery Wards upright would be dying soon we bought a smaller upright and a small chest. Then I decided it would be handy to have one on the back porch for the things I use most often. I use dollar store plastic baskets and cheap small storage totes with labels on the front in the uprights. Most everything we freeze is foodsavered and hard to corral (yep, double sealed and dh says he likes the generic rolls of plastic best). Right now none of the freezers are full and I could get everything into two, but it's so nice to be able to see in there. Giant, still-running upright is beef and three slabs of pork belly I need to bacon-ize. Small chest has a turkey and cloth grocery bags of pkgs of fruit and lots of corn. ...it was the last year for corn from our favorite u-pick so we stocked up. Other upright is pork, lamb and chickens. The back porch freezer is full of vegies,fish, stock, store bought stuff. Leftovers and things that should be used soon go in the fridge freezer. Sounds so organized. Ha. The best I can do is make myself go through them every few months. I tried an inventory taped to the door...was really bad about marking things off. I have gotten much better about labeling and dating, though. Even so, I always seem to wind up with a batch of 'dog soup' when I clean them out.