What paper work do you keep and for how long?

jaybee

jaybee

jaybee

Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
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I had a clearout the other day and found bills/statements/invoices dating back to 1999. I've been quite ruthless and thrown a lot of stuff out. I made sure to burn it all properly. I literally now have about one folders worth of paper, and used to have cardboard boxes full of old rubbish. I also try to do ebilling now for most of my stuff, but what do you find you keep and for how long?
 
I keep everything, actually started sorting it by date, type of document etc. a few months back, got half way and got bored so never finished... the unsorted paperwork is in a box in my room :(
 
I keep all my papers filed in chronological order. It depends on how much space you have for them. Buy a massive shelf or something or you can just go all digital and scan them all in and stuff.
 
Used to keep everything then started to run out of space so had a big shred a couple of weeks ago. Had bank statements going back to 1990 and Visa bills from '98. On top of that all receipts etc. Made a resolution to just keep the minimum required such as receipts for goods bought in shops etc and switched to online billing wherever possible. Only thing i didnt shred were wage slips and P60's from the last 5 years.
 
MikeHunt79 said:
I scan a lot of it and then bit it or burn it once it's over a year old...
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Same here. I scan everything that does not legally need to be held in paper format or I don't get in electronic format, shred the paper versions. Its scary how much I shred every couple of months.
 
Bank statements and pay slips - keep all.
Once had to prove I was working and not on holiday for 6 months! Not to mention pension issues
 
I have a folder with :
- Statements of each of my accounts going back 4 years I think, in date order.
- All my pay slips from each job I've worked + P60s
- Every bill fromy my mobile contract
- Receipts for any big purchase I've made
- DVLA documents.
- All HMRC letters.

I'm not old enough for this folder to be overflowing but I like knowing I have proof of things incase something comes back to bite.
 
Just finished a shredding session the other day. 2 black bags full of paperwork!!

Got rid of most stuff that is more that 1 year old (car insurance, bank statements, payslips etc)

Most of it's not needed.

Keep P60's, current insurances, life cover docs, DVLA etc etc.
 
Bank Statments and payslips I keep for 5 years as that is the maximum the inland revenue can ask for and if you don't have them banks will charge you a fortune for the missing ones. No idea how this works with online statements but I refuse to switch unless there is something in it for me as it is just the banks trying to save loads of money at least the energy and phone companies had the common sense to offer an insentive!

Everything else I keep for about a year just incase there is a dispute over something.
 
3 months of statements, payslip and bills. Plus the receipts for expensive items.

In honesty I can get a years worth of data from all my accounts online so no real need to keep anything.
 
I was self employed until 2006 so my mountain of 'archived' crap has to remain until 2016 :(

Otherwise, we tend to keep about a year's worth.
 
Saviola said:
In honesty I can get a years worth of data from all my accounts online so no real need to keep anything.
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If the inland revenue decide to investigate you for tax purposes they can request all bank statments and payslips going back five years. You have to supply these and your bank will charge a considerable sum fo reprints.
 
I like filing......

- All bank statements filled in chronological order, organized by account type

- Documents relating to work (P60's, payslips, contracts etc) are filed by category in a seperate cabinate in date order (split for myself and my wife)

- Bills and DD's are filed in another cabinet sorted by company and date

- Large invoices (eg OCUK stuff) are filled alphabetically in another cabinet, also these are in date order where possible.

- Normal invoices and spend (under £50) along with spend detailed above are entered onto a spreadsheet based cashbook to allow for cashflow and budget anaylsis (yes I also maintain budgets and cashflows...). Fuel receipts are entered in this way AND entered seperatly on a fuel spend spreadsheet to monitor MPG etc.

I am stupidly anal about filing in general (does it show) and believe it or not I have tried to keep my system as simple as possible.... :o

Whilst this may all sound OTT I do budgets and cashflows for a living (work as a Tax an Treasury Accountant for a medium/large company) so they come as second nature to me now.
 
I got rid of almost everything (shredder + burn). No need.

I used to keep everything. Then when I realised after 5yrs I never once needed something I'd filed, I binned it.
 
I'm a bit OCD when it comes to such things and keep everything :o

Should clear out some old invoices/receipts and paperwork that is out of date and no longer valid.
 
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