I would have to say I consider you very VERY lucky you have not been a victim of Identity Theft. Yes shread those bills, reciepts and so on. if you look at your reciepts you will see a barcode. That bar code matches your credit / debit card and sometimes store that the purchase was made in. it is how the stores varify you bought the item you are trying to return. If it is a reciept like Mcdonalds you will see a bunch of numbers some of those numbers match your credit and debit card. Basically a reciept contains all the info needed to commit Identity Theft. The same with bills. If you look at the bills you will see your name address and account number, and sometimes your phone number is also mixed in with some of the numbers. A person here showed the police for a news broadcast how easy it was. they dialed the billing company and told them they forgot to write in their records if they made a payment and how that mayment was made. Then the person asked the billing department to varify the check, debit card and or credit card so that they could be sure he didn't use his wifes card by mistake. The billing department supplied all the info needed to go to the atm with the police officer and take money out of the police officers account. Then the guy went to motor vehicle and showed the bill for proof of address and showed a forged birth certificate and got a photo ID done as that police officers name. Then he walked into the local bank showed the ID and handed over a withdrawal slip.

Shread those documents - they may not be important to you but they sure are to the theives.