There’s some type of meme that locksmiths use about door locks that this reminds me of. Paraphrasing, door locks don’t stop hard core criminals from breaking into your house, they stop average people from seizing an opportunity.
It really sounds like Quicken is for you. I can tell you right now, to the penny how much I have in my checking account and my two savings accounts. If you give me 2 minutes I can tell you what I owe, two the penny on my two credit cards, how much my stock portfolio and retirement accounts are worth and what I owe, to the penny, on my house…to the penny. I can also tell you how much interest I’ve pain on my house in 2013 (or any year). I don’t have to track that, but it’s nice to know when tax time rolls around to have some idea while I’m waiting for my 1099.
As my dad would say “It keeps the honest people honest”.
The people who toss out their receipts: what if you need to return something? (I ask because my Fitbit, which is only a few weeks old) has stopped working properly. Naturally, I have every receipt for everything I’ve ever bought. Except the receipt for the Fitbit.
No, I can’t help with the organisation side of things. I read these threads for hints on how to improve my own chaotic lack of skills in this department.
We are talking about tossing the credit card receipt, not the sales receipt. However, I’ve never had a problem getting a refund (or, worst case, store credit) on the occasions I have lost my sales receipt.
Rarely is there a distinction between the two any more.
Yeah, sounds great but there’s a opportunity cost there. I think in my heart of hearts I know the right solution is to loosen up and settle for good enough, but there’s a visceral appeal to this level of control.
If there is no separate credit card receipt, then there is no credit card receipt. You have a sales receipt and should keep it in case you need to return the goods. If you have a separate slip (as in a restaurant), that’s a credit card receipt and that is what at least I was referring to in this thread as something that I toss.
Agreed. The Fitbit I bought generated only two pieces of paper: one which I signed and the vendor kept and the other which was given to me.
Your credit card issuer can get you a copy of your receipt. I have done this and returned something with that copy and while the seller looked at the copy really carefully (front and back!) they did accept it and give me a refund.
ETA: all without actually talking to someone at the bank; I sent a message from the internet site of my credit card info and they e-mailed me the receipt in a couple of days.
However, it does make you wonder why these “honest” people apparently need a lock to keep them from stealing.
I put them in my back pocket. I don’t really know why; they’re just going to collect there until I do laundry, and then I just throw them out.
For items of significant worth that have a non-neglible chance of being returned, I keep the receipt. All other receipts go in the trash.
Example:
New $200 cordless drill? Receipt goes in a file, at least until the warranty expires.
New $2 drill bit? Receipt goes in the trash can.
I’ve never had to return a meal I ate at a restaurant, so those receipts get trashed. I do take the “customer copy” with me (and then throw it away at home); this way the server doesn’t know that I don’t keep my receipt, and therefore will be less likely to attempt to fraudulently jack up the tip on the “merchant copy” of the receipt. FWIW, if that’s ever happened to me, the adjustment has been subtle enough to escape my eye when I review my monthly credit card statement.
It’s extremely rare that I return groceries to the store, so those receipts go in the trash.
Gasoline purchases? No receipt.
Nuts and bolts? Masking tape? Motor oil? Greeting cards? Why would I want to keep receipts for those?
Many stores also will happily accept a return without a receipt, if you don’t mind taking store credit instead of a refund. Home Depot is a good example: as long as they carry the item you’re attempting to return, you’ll receive a gift card for the value of the item. No problemo, I shop there a lot.
Yes, there may have been once or twice in my history when I needed to return an item, but did not have the receipt. Whenever this happens, at first I scream “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!” - and then I remember the hundreds and hundreds of hours I have saved over the years by not saving, collating, filing and crosschecking every goddam credit card receipt from every goddam purchase I ever made. So far, I’m ahead in the game.
I quit collecting receipts a couple of years ago, when it occurred to me that the credit card company’s record keeping was way more accurate than mine. I’m glad to see I am not alone.
You could always use a check register to track the amounts, payees, and dates. But I think it’s unnecessary.
That’s how I feel about it. Even if you rarely lose an extra few bucks to a scammy waiter/waitress, it costs way more than $5 worth of effort to track every single purchase. You will notice the large errors when you glance over your statement. And that’s good enough. We make and spend way more (in raw dollars) than our parents ever did. It’s just not a good use of your time.
When I purchased something on my debit card, needed to return it, but misplaced the receipt, Best Buy was able to look up the purchase and print off a receipt for me at the returns counter. Then they refunded me on the spot. Most electronics retailers are pretty accommodating.
Honest probably isn’t the right word. But here’s a good example. Back when I was in high school and my dad took my to get a new bike, the guy at the bike shop sold us a seat lock. It was just a very thin cable that attached to the bike frame and the seat (the seat had to be taken apart to attach it). I remember looking at it and telling my dad I could cut this thing with a scissors*. My dad said “It keeps the honest people honest” the bike guy pointed out that someone who wants to steal your seat is still going to get it, it’s not meant to stop them. It’s to stop the classmate who’s playing a joke or the guy who’s just stealing random seats to be funny. He’s not a ‘thief’ any more than I was a vandal when I tossed a rock threw my neighbors window at 10 years old just to see if I could break it.
The seat lock will stop him and a piece of plexiglass over the window (on garage window butting up to a backyard full of kids) would have stopped me.
*A few years ago I needed that seat lock off so I grabbed a good wire cutters and it took me about 5 minutes to cut it. I probably wouldn’t have actually been able to get it off with a scissors.
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It boils down to how much time you are willing to give up for that level of control. By the time I finally threw in the towel I was devoting an entire Sunday morning to dicking around with Quicken every month. There are better ways to waste time.
Right now I’m in some terrible limbo between the two.
I’ve given up the effort of collating and reconciling my receipts (ever since my software went bye-bye) but I haven’t stopped sticking them in my pocket/wallet and storing them to be “organized” at home. I basically have piles of receipts all over my house waiting to be moved to the office and stuffed into a shoebox.
Frankly it’s ridiculous.
That’s what happened with me, I found that after a few years I would ‘cheat’ and just enter a charge directly from my CC statement instead of hunting all over the place for the receipt. I knew it was my charge, I knew it was real, how much time did I really want to spend to check it against the receipt.
For me, my happy middle ground is that I enter each charge, one by one, off my statement*. Like I said earlier, sure, if one of them is off a little, I might never know it, but if there’s a fraudulent charge**, it’s not going to slip through the way it does for people that just “make a payment” or hit the “pay balance” button each month without looking at the charges.
*I actually do it once a week and it takes me, usually, about 2 minutes from the time I get to my CC’s website to the time everything is balanced and paid. If something is ‘off’, it might take 5-10 minutes, but it usually all works out.
**The only time I ever get worried is when I have a lot of Amazon charges. If someone slipped an extra one in, I probably wouldn’t know it. Sometimes I will go back against my Amazon account and check each one, but it always works out.
I put them in my wallet. Every year or so I get a new wallet and throw them away. With the exception of reimbursable or deductible expenses.