With the necessity to protect ourselves against identity theft these days, in my opinion a shredder is a must. Instead of tearing up your bank statements and other personal documents and putting them into the dustbin, it is a wise idea to invest in a shredder.

The one I have got is this model, which I bought from Tesco. At less than a tenner it has been a very useful addition to the other household gadgets which seem to clutter up the house. But, this is different, it is not just another buy which sits on the shelf gathering dust, it is used almost on a daily basis.

The shredder consists of a shredding unit which sits on top of the bin, the unit itself is quite heavy but the bin is very light. The unit plugs into the mains and you must not use it without the wastebin underneath. The whole unit stands about 30cm high.

As soon as the post is delivered each morning, any mail that is not needed is checked for our address or other personal details and then the document is put through the shredder. Don’t forget the envelopes too, you can tear off the address part and just shred this. Actually "shredding" is not really what it does, it actually cuts the paper into thin strips so "stripping" might be a more accurate term to use.

As with most electrical items, there is a certain amount of noise, but I would certainly not say the shredder is “noisy”.

This model will shred up to six sheets at a time, which is great as you don’t have to keep feeding in one at a time like with some of the older shredders. But do bear in mind that paper can be of varying thicknesses and you may find it easier to shred less than six.

The waste bin is quite spacious and has a capacity of 10L, which is a lot of shredded paper!

It will take paper up to a maximum size of A3, which again is a useful feature. However it will not accept credit cards so you still have to use the scissors to cut these up. Metal objects, such as staples and paper clips, must also be removed before shredding the paper.

The shredder is easy to operate, but do make sure it is out of reach of children as it doesn’t have a safety lock feature. You insert the document to be shredded and it starts as soon as the paper starts to feed into the shredder, then stops automatically once the document has passed through the cutters.

A reverse function is where you can insert the paper and then if there is a jam, or you have inadvertently put in the wrong document, you can take it out again.

Our shredder sits in the kitchen and is easily accessible, making the important task of shredding important papers so much easier and it is almost routine now to do this.

And once the paper has been shredded, you can of course put it in the recycling bin and not have to worry about your bank details turning up in China or somewhere! Or you can add it to the compost bin.

One other helpful hint, is that if you have a gift to wrap and need some packaging to go inside the box, then take some coloured paper and pass it through your shredder! Looks good and helps to protect fragile items from being damaged. I suppose you could also use your shredded paper to package things like china or glass when moving house or putting things in storage.

A shredder is something of a novelty at first, the kids will probably want to have a try but please make sure they are supervised.

One of these would also make an ideal Christmas gift for elderly relatives (or anyone really). I know of one elderly couple who are aware of identity theft and until they got their shredder they tore off any identification from documents, set fire to them with a match and then flushed the remains down the loo! A shredder is so much easier!