Year's end, file size an issue?

[Paul and/or Minna Brown]

Hi all -- alright, sort of prompted by Jeff Kletsky's accounting explanation, and sort of just because I've been wondering what the list has to say:

For "average Joe", are there some "best practices" that should be followed at year's end in order to wrap everything from (in this case) 2009 into a nice package, then stash it away for safe keeping, and only take it out to look at later for analysis sake (for example)?

I've only been using GnuCash since 5/2008, but my file size is seeming to affect GnuCash startup, etc.

So: not a business - just a "normal" home user, tracking investments, bank accounts, credit cards, etc...

Feel free to point me to good sources instead of wasting bandwidth if this is the umpteenth time this has come up.

TIA!

-paul