Walmart 6-Sheet Crosscut Shredder with Easy Lift Handle

The Walmart 6-Sheet Crosscut Shredder with Easy Lift Handle is a budget model (made by Aurora) that earns kudos from most owners as an excellent value for light use, especially if only three sheets or so are fed in at one time. It's designed to handle staples and small paper clips as well as credit cards and paper; and the motor is protected from overheating -- the bane of many budget shredders.

This shredder even includes two safety features: a cover on the insertion slot for when it's not in use, plus a patented "SafeSense" feature that shuts off the motor if an object is forced into the slot. This feature earns mixed reviews from owners, some of whom say it requires feeding in paper and cards at a certain angle in order not to trigger the safety mechanism. This shredder's main drawbacks, though, are loud noise and shredded pieces that are 5.6 mm wide compared with 4 mm for most crosscut shredders. If slightly higher security matters more to you than safety features, consider the Royal HT88 (*Est. $50), another budget shredder that gets good reviews.

ConsumerReports.org doesn't test any paper shredders priced under $50, but we found over 230 mostly enthusiastic reviews from users posted at Walmart.com. This site also summarizes the users' ratings as well as the percentage of users who say they'd recommend this model to a friend.