I ask this because I just realized I’ve been saving nearly every receipt since I started paying bills on my own. I made a big change early on, from putting all the phone bills in the phone folder and all the Visa bills in the visa folder, to all July’s bills in the July folder. That saved some time.
But still, I’ve got BOXES AND BOXES of folders of bills. And in the last 20 years, I can’t remember referring to them…once!
Now, all my bills are paid online, with the bank, but I still get a thick wad of paper each month that I feel compelled to keep.
I shredded some bills a few months back, from the early 90’s. I toyed with the idea of just pitching the box, I mean, how dangerous could THAT be?
Til I noticed the duplicate checks had my SSN printed on them. Lived in a simpler time, I did!
I pay everything online, and don’t keep reciepts for anything unless it will be tax related. I’ve got a little accordion file for that.
I’ve heard/read that you should keep your tax returns and any related reciepts for 10 years. If you keep records of paid bills I suppose 2 years worth outta be enough, but I’m probably not the one to listen to on that.
Don’t just toss the boxes. Shred shred shred. Not alot of fun, but you could use a professional shredding place I suppose.
For property-related bills (water rates, council rates, strata fees) I keep all the records.
For utility-style bills (phone, electricity) I keep the last four quarters’ bills only. Similarly, I keep only one year for insurance policy renewals.
Tax-related information I keep longer term, and every few years I turf out some of the old stuff. This weekend is tax return weekend for me, so I’ll probably throw out a bit more stuff.
Other bills get tossed out as soon as they’re paid.
I don’t buy into the actual “balancing your checkbook” spiel. I work in IT and computers can do math quite a bit better than me. I have Bank of America which some people despise but it has great online banking. Even paper checks are imaged front and back and you can see them and get them anytime you want online.
The flip side is that the companies that you pay have their own computer systems and their office staff is usually willing to hep if you are nice. Between those two, I don’t see how boxes filled with paper are any good at all except for a 70 year old. I just look at all my transactions every couple of days online and see if the transactions are valid and if any major ones haven’t cleared. It is very easy once you get used to it and takes 2 - 5 minutes just looking at them. I am pretty sure that I would know if I went to a donkey sex show in Tijuana Mexico two days before for example.
One way that I have been burned however is outside the system I described above. I always pay medical copays in cash when I walk in. I always make sure I have the money before I walk in. Medical receptionists are generally the most sully bitches on the planet. They could fuck up a wet dream through inter-brain teleportation just due to spite. I have three letters sitting here in front of claiming that I owe two hospitals substantial amounts of money and I have no way to prove that I don’t. I guess I need to switch to credit cards for that for better documentation.
I use a cash card for that. About the only thing we pay cash for anymore is Lunch or Dinner, we use(d) checks for daycare, and I’ve got a ‘slush fund’ account that only uses a cash card.
I pay all the bills by check. I never keep a record of the bills. I shred all of that stuff immediately after I’m done writing out the checks. I balance my checkbook monthly, the old-fashioned way…writing down all the outstanding checks, blah, blah, blah.
If something slips toward the due date and I haven’t mailed it in time for it to arrive on time, I do a telephone transfer so it’s paid on time. I’ve only done that a handful of times.
I have every bank statement from the last 20 years. Those are my only receipts.
I pay for all my bills, including my rent, via automatic direct debit, and virtually all my bills are now viewable online only - I don’t get paper copies for much. When I do, I keep maybe 1-2 years’ worth.
The beauty of everything being online is that the onus isn’t on me to do anything or keep anything, good thing too as I’m useless with money.
Online for everything. In fact, the only checks I write are for church offerings. I could do that automatically as well.
I don’t keep any hard copies of bills. I’m moving soon so almost all the old records are being tossed except for tax documents and other important papers.
I despise clutter and can not see the point of keeping an electric bill from 2006, much less 1996.
Whenever possible, online (direct debit, cc’s, e-transfer) and paperless.
Google and my bank are much better at keeping track of “where I put my bills” than I am at tracking “now where did I put that paper.”
I also send my bills to my clients in pdf form and by email.
Oh, and I checked with my government and, while I do need to be able to say what each of the expenses I’m deducting are and what each of my incomes is if I ever get an inspection, I don’t need to keep any papers; the pdf of the bills I send (google) and my bank statements (which I can get from the banks’ webpages) are fine.
What’s also kind of nice here is that all the bills have bar codes printed on them so you can pay everything at the corner convenience store for no extra fee.
I pay my health insurance premiums by direct debit. I pay everything else by writing out checks and mailing them. I’ve been a terrible packrat when it comes to keeping paid bills and cancelled checks, but recently embarked on a project to get rid of all the old stuff. I had all my bills and checks back to the early 70’s. Now, I’m destroying old bills when the subsequent bill shows my payment.
Nearly everything is online. I get paid electronically, I pay my bills online, I do the majority of my banking online, I send and receive money to and from friends and family online, and I transfer money between my accounts online. I just have a .txt file called “bank” which I add the electronic receipts to.
I go to the ATM for rent money (my landlord likes cash) and a little pocket money. I walk inside a bank about once a year, just to deposit my tax refund, and I just drop that in the box rather than wait for a teller to serve me.
Online for 99.9% of the bills I pay. About the only time I write a check is for one-time transactions. Some are done through my bank; others are direct withdrawals from my checking account or charges to my credit card. I don’t keep records, though I’ll usually keep the last one or two utility bills, if for no other reason than because you need a current bill to take trash to the drop-off station.
Like most folks here, I do just about everything online. The only checks I write anymore are to family and the like, and that happens maybe once a month or less.
If you want to go cold-turkey on the paper bills, most services have an option to stop mailing out a paper bill; you’ll have to search the options under your account settings on the various sites on which you pay. Some, like Sprint, will actually give you a small account credit (I think it was $5) if you sign up for paperless billing.
Once you’ve stopped the bills from coming in the mail, you can still keep records if you like through online banking. Our bank, at least, will allow you to download reports of past transactions, and I believe they keep a year’s worth at a time, divided by month in nice PDF files. You can download a new report every month and just archive it on your computer, even keep a backup on a CD-RW if you like. You could get the information from your other payees as well, but in my opinion, there’s no need; the report from your bank will show the date, how much you paid, and who got the money.
Sure, the mathematics will be perfect on your bank statement, but that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be correct. Three times in the past two years I have found cases where checks were paid in the wrong amount. Two were really minor (like XX.19 being entered instead of XX.17) and I simply adjusted my check book register and let it go. Likely the fault of my lousy handwriting fooling some poor keypuncher in Malaysia.
But the third time involved a $1000 difference – my check written for something like $178.50 got coded as $1178.50. :eek:
You better believe I showed up at the local bank to protest that one. Apologies were offered effusively, no real damage done, but still… There’s a good reason I balance my checkbook right away when I get each statement.
And this WAS Bank of America, btw. So ‘big’ doesn’t mean they can’t screw up.
I was a terrible bill payer. Not because of lack of funds but I can be a forgetful so and so and also a bit lazy. Most of my stuff, rent and utilities, comes out on the first of the month with a few hitting mid month.
I check online to see if everything was correct i.e. expected amounts leaving my accounts etc.