I'm currently trying to get our files more organized and I'm realizing that maybe I save stuff for too long because the files are jam-packed.

How long do you all keep bank statements, paid bills, paystubs, and stuff like that?

I toss the bills as soon as I pay them. I don't even look at the bank statements and toss them as soon as they come because I download them into quicken. I keep paystubs for a couple of months or so.

Dennis

I'm a bit of a pack rat :lol:
I keep bills for a very long time, though I know I don't need to. I would keep those 3 months or so.
I keep bank statements forever, but I would probably keep at least a year.
I keep pay stubs until they fill up my check book too much, then I pitch them.

Nice system, huh?

we toss everything as well. our paystubs are online and we have direct deposit. also, with online banking i don't even open the paper statements anymore.

We keep bills until the new bill comes in.
We keep bank statements until we balance what is online with the paper statement.
We keep paystubs until the next paycheck comes.

I have statements from when DH and I moved in here, a year and a half ago.

Harmonie -- I just cleaned out bills in January and I had bills from 4-5 years ago :blush:

Nocona, I haven't gotten through everything yet, but I'm pretty sure I've got you beat. :blush1: :lol:

Ok, so compared to you guys, I definitely keep things too long. Once I get organized, I'm going to get us set up in Quicken so I guess that will eliminate the need for paper bank statements.

I think I'll get rid of paid bills after I go through them and set up a better budget.

As for paystubs, I'm still not sure about those. The one good thing about mine is that they list my vacation and sick time balances. My HR dept. likes to pull shady maneuvers and take away vacay time (this just happened to me! :complain: ), so I feel like I should hang on to them for at least 6 months I guess.

I toss bills as soon as I get them, if I can pay them online...the other bills, I toss everything but the stub and the envelope to send them back in, and clip those to my calendar...

we don't get bank statements, our bank supplies those online and it saves us a $5 service charge every month...they keep the checks, one less thing for me to throw away or have laying around here

robb keeps his pay stubs at work, filed in his file cabinet..otherwise they get lost or tossed

We keep the bills for the year and at the end of the year, we shred them. This way, we go through the end of the year and calculate how much each utility was to see if they steadly increase through the year so we know what to budget for the next year.
I keep all the bills for the month in a file folder labeled with that month on it.

Lisa

Nocona, I haven't gotten through everything yet, but I'm pretty sure I've got you beat. :blush1: :lol:
Uh, yeah. I just found some invoices/receipts from 1994 and for some reason I saved all of the lease agreements I've ever signed. I even had the lease agreement from my freshman dorm in college. :lol: Hello pack rat city!

:lol: I just cleaned our filing cabinet out yesterday. I keep stuff way too long too. I had pay stubs from 5 years ago. I decided just to keep stuff from this year. Oh, and the tax stuff I'll keep for 7 years or whatever they say to keep it for.

I cleaned out my files the other day and still had wal-mart receipts from my freshman year of college! (1995)... I pay most bills online and don't keep paper statements, same with bank statements...

Well I guess I am the oddball...........

I keep all my bills labeled by month even though we pay them online. DH just attaches all the bills to the printed reciept of what he paid when online (which is usually most of them at a single time). The reason? I just had Bellsouth come back after 3 1/2 years of living in our first house we bought together getting ready to buy our second stating we owed them money from our RENTAL house for dailup service we had back in 2000. They had charged us an extra month or so of service while we were in our new house in another state for our rental in the old state ~ hello no phone hooked up, no dial up. So I had all the crap that went with that fiasco to prove to them that they fixed their mistake back in 2000 and they should leave us alone after 3 1/2 years! I don't like getting rid of bills because I like to be able to go back and track something if I need to if there is a problem.

Once a year I go through our receipts folder & throw out receipts we don't need. This usually occurs at the end of the year.

DH's paystubs are all online.

As for the bank statements I really need to cancel those as we do everything online, kinda pointless when you have access 24/7! Thanks to this thread I can do that tommorrow :blush1: . I am also going through all our old bank statements dating back from 97 when we were first together & slowly shredding those (I have alot ). This week is office week so I am going through EVERYTHING & paring down!

Tax information I just have kept all by year in seperate folders in a filebox. We just now have been together 7 years so I guess I could start chucking some of that as well.

Tina

I keep everything, but I'm not organized. I know I don't really need to, but I can't help it. For instance, I know exactly where all my paystubs from 1991 are (probably through to about 1996), but we couldn't find any of DH's from last month when we really needed them :blush: (I also have the recepits in the file folder from when I had the cats fixed in 1990 :rotflmao: . Those kitties are long gone!). I need to brush up on my system (and do a major clean up!!) as after I got married, my organization skills went downhill. Right now I'm going crazy trying to find a tax receipt that apparantly grew legs and walked away.

I keep Bills for 6 months . Paycheck Stubs for a year . I have Tax items for 5 yrs. I still have the last Tax forms from my first marriage (time to get rid of that).Bank Statements 1 year. Any other Bills I paid , If I feel I will have a problem..I will keep them indefinitely!