An excellent low cost alternative to doing your own shredding is to hire a reputable shredding service. There are now shred services in most cities that destroy your paper documents on-site. We find these firms typically do a quick and thorough job. The document storage bins they provide should have high security locks to prevent unauthorized access. While this may present a problem if you need to retrieve a document accidentally placed into the shred bin, it does provide a higher level of security.
File cabinets are another common vulnerability.
The factory-installed locks are easy to pick or circumvent. A cost effective countermeasure is to install an external add-on locking bar and quality padlock. Similarly, most office desks with their original manufacturer's locks offer little security. It is difficult to find and install add-on devices that are secure and unobtrusive. We recommend a very simple solution to this problem.