Nothing like old school destruction as an important first step in preventing ID theft. Sure, you can protect your SSN and use other steps to lock-down your ID, but unless you plan on living in Fort Knox and never doing anything, there’s still a risk.

At home, there’s no place like your recycling bin or trash to get information about you. For a blog, we tend to use a lot of paper. We take notes in meetings, during phone calls, scribbling random ideas, and of course there’s our mail. Junk mail, bills, everything. All of the stuff can be used against us someway, somehow.

So rather than go bleach everything and pollute the environment even more, we decided to get a shredder. Nothing fancy, just a cheap ($80) shredder that could handle most of our simple paper shredding. Oh yeah, we wanted a decent enough not to jam all the time.

We looked around and picked Fellowes. Maybe it was the bulldog on the box, but this was favorite one after a week or so of hunting around. Man there are a ton of shredders out there. Cross-cut, micro-cut, etc etc. Cross-cut shredders are the most common. It cuts the paper into tiny strips. Not full length strips, but small strips. The micro-cut (or sometimes called diamond-cut) is the confetti like pieces.

We didn’t want something too fine (as they’re expensive), but at least decent enough so that gluing docs together just wasn’t going to worth their time.

First off, this thing is big. Bigger than an average office garbage can big. It’s heavy and the blades are thick. Other shredders we looked at were pretty light and while they had more blades, the blades weren’t as thick and some were even a little flimsy.

All the shredders we looked at claimed to do staples, paper clips, CD’s, credit cards, and 8-12 sheets at a time. Still, the Fellowes unit had the most bulk and nice thick cutting blades.

So, how does it shred? Mean. 12 sheets of paper go through like butter. Automatic feed mechanism so you just line it up and the shredder eats it. There’s a simple CD/credit card slot to help guide them through, but you really don’t need it. We found regular office staples and paper clips (not the gigantic ones) went through without any problems.

The CD/credit card performance was most impressive. Other units we looked at offered the same feature, but when we tested them in store the card and discs just sat in the slot while the shredder took bits of it at a time. The Fellowes unit we got (model DM12C+) at the CD or credit card (one at a time) like it was paper. It just went through like nothing.

It’s not quiet, but it’s not loud. Sound during use is about what you’d expect. You know it’s running, but you can still talk to someone in the room (even if your voice is slightly louder than normal). You’re not screaming at anyone though, so we were pleased with that.

Operation is simple. Auto-feed or manual, it’s up to you. There’s also a constant shred setting where the blades just keep going. It’ll go on it’s own for about 20mins before shutting down to cool the blades and motor down. There’s a reverse feature as well that allows you clear any jams, but in our one week of shredding, it won’t jam. It hasn’t yet.

Included in box is the shredding unit, main bin, and slide out trash bin. No wheels, but I’ll put them on myself for 2 bucks each later if I really want them. The slide out bin provides ample space and easy access. All features we liked.

Overall, we like this unit and for $80 (on-sale if you can find it) it’s worth the purchase as similar units were $20-$40 more.

There are cheaper units out there that do 8 or 12 sheets at a time, but overall the Fellowes unit has got the quality blades and performance that we were looking for.

Highly recommended.

(Editor’s Security Note: Being able to shred CD’s/DVD’s and other disc formats is an important feature. Breaking a disc doesn’t remove the data as sometimes a little super glue can make a split disc semi-readable again, making your data still alive. shredding it into pieces pretty much sends it into the bit-bin forever. We recommend you get a shredder with this feature. For credit cards, it’s even more important. A cut or bent card doesn’t prevent it from being used again. Data from the magnetic strip can still be read by simply removing the strip/film and glueing together again and using a commonly available reader to read data off again. The same goes for swipe cards used in hotel rooms, offices, etc. You’d be surprised at the kind of personal information that’s found on hotel room swipe cards (SSN, DOB, etc). If you want to secure this information, shredding it pretty much prevents folks from getting at it again.)

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