How long I suppose to save receipts?

Answer 1

For purchases, you should save them until the warranty or time allotted to return or exchange it has ran out. For stuff like payoffs on mortgages or cars, you should hold on to those indefinitely. You never know when 10 years down the road they come back and tell you that you missed the last payment or something. I hold on to receipts for any large cash purchase, when I right a check for it, the check is my receipt. The way I feel about it is, if I pay a bill in cash and they come back and tell me I never paid it. I'll have to pay it again if I can't prove it. This happened with a phone bill, I never had past due or unpaid bills, so I knew I had paid up all my phone bills. AT&T sent me to collections for a bill, the bill was 10 years old and I did not have any proof, so I had to pay it again. So now I never throw away my old checks, I used to only keep them for a couple years, now I keep them forever. I was happy because my bank quit sending us back all the checks I had wrote and started scanning them in to their computer, then every month in my statement, instead of the checks I get a paper that has a tiny little copy of each check. One sheet of paper holds about 20 pictures of checks. This is really good because for one, it's way easier to file than all these checks. I used to store them in the box the checks came in, now instead of storing in my file cabinet boxes of checks, I have them in file folders, and one month of checks fits on like two sheets of paper. Also, it's not a security risk sending our checks back in the mail, criminals know how to wash all the ink pen off a check, then they have a blank check to write.

Anyway, keep proof of anything you don't want to have to pay again as far as bills, and keep proof of large purchases, until the warranty or return/exchange time is up.


Happy Yahooing! ; )

Answer 2

It depends how long you might have to return something. For huge items you can tape it to the box. Grocery receipts are worthless to me they last until I clean my purse.

Answer 3

It depends on the item bought, if it is an expensive item, keep it somewhere safe for a year or so, otherwise, just long enough until you are happy with what you bought.

Answer 4

I usually keep them for 1 year...unless it was a large purchase such as a big screen tv