Do you save a copy of all your bills?

[Yzzim]

Just got done paying most of my bills for the week and started wondering whether I should save all the paper copies they give me. I've never had a problem a company telling me I've never paid a bill. Even if I did I could just look online to see the check number, when the cashed it, etc.

So do you save all the paper copies of your bills? Other than tax reasons, is there any reason to now with online banking?

 

[dionx]

i don't get paper bills. i just always check and pay online. to minimize the amount of bills i do have to pay, i have autopay for bills to get paid by credit card. then i just have to worry about paying the credit card bill. i don't like autopay through banks or credit unions as i heard they aren't electronic payments but rather they send a check.

i do keep paper copies of my paychecks and make PDF scans of them.

 

[myusername]

I just got around to coming to the same conclusion. If the CC company or bank wants to screw you, having a printed copy in your hand isn't going to do any thing except make them say it was a typographical error. Going to keep the last 2 statements and that's it. Still keeping old tax info/paystubs though.

 

[FoBoT]

stuff where you don't owe, like services, cable, electric, water, sewer etc. just keep the most recent bill that shows you paid the last bill in full

things like debt, student loans and mortgages, you keep ALL paperwork FOREVER, including copies of checks used to make payments and copies of bank statements that show you made the payments

debts like automobiles, you just keep the paperwork until the loan is paid and the lien is off the title

tax returns and ALL related records should be kept for 7 years

CC i forget the rule for those, i think rotating credit falls into the same as services since otherwise in theory you would have to keep all the CC reciepts also, that seems a bit much

clark howard (www.clarkhoward.com) had it all listed on his old web site, the search function on the new site is b0rked, so i can't find it

 

[gar3555]

I keep most of my bills, especially the importtant ones, but w/ everything going online these days, I don't need them as much.

 

[Yossarian]

yes I keep maybe 2 years worth

 

[markgm]

I save them all. If nothing else it's funny to look back and see what your bills were that you *thought* were expensive at the time.

 

[biostud]

I read it as balls

 

[DainBramaged]

no

 

[zainali]

no. everything is online.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Yzzim
Just got done paying most of my bills for the week and started wondering whether I should save all the paper copies they give me. I've never had a problem a company telling me I've never paid a bill. Even if I did I could just look online to see the check number, when the cashed it, etc.

So do you save all the paper copies of your bills? Other than tax reasons, is there any reason to now with online banking?

Every last one. As I pay them in Quicken they are scanned into folders into ScanSoft Paperport (e.g. pdf files).

It's very handy. I can lookup and of the data I need pretty darn quick. Since I do the same with financial docs the last few loans I did, I simply emailed all of the needed data from the pdf's to the loan officers.

Once scanned, anything and everything with personal identifiable information (including the mailing labels on magazines) goes into a shredder.

Bill

 

[nageov3t]

no... I don't balance my checkbook either.

 

[Engineer]

No.

No stamps as everything is electronically paid and all money direct deposit.

Completely online or automatic. Book them in the checkbook and balance it, but never reconsile it with the bank's statement.

 

[gistech1978]

the shedder @ work on monday morning is going to be busy after reading this.
ive saved old bills for years. i dont know why.

 

[cubby1223]

I wish credit card companies kept their old statements... Had cancelled a credit card one August, balance was $0. Stopped receiving statements from them. Being I was in college back then, they had a college apartment address that I never lived at again after December. Come the following June, I get a call from a collections agency wondering why I haven't paid a $300 debt on the CC! CC company cannot even tell me what the initial charge was for! All they had was the previous 6 months records showing nothing but late fees and interest. They delete all records over 6 months old! Yeah, I wasn't in a good mood back then.

 

[Gillbot]

I don't, If there is a problem with a past payment I just use my bank records to show the debit from my account for the amount the bill was on the date they cashed it.

 

[Yzzim]

Originally posted by: cubby1223
I wish credit card companies kept their old statements... Had cancelled a credit card one August, balance was $0. Stopped receiving statements from them. Being I was in college back then, they had a college apartment address that I never lived at again after December. Come the following June, I get a call from a collections agency wondering why I haven't paid a $300 debt on the CC! CC company cannot even tell me what the initial charge was for! All they had was the previous 6 months records showing nothing but late fees and interest. They delete all records over 6 months old! Yeah, I wasn't in a good mood back then.

I've heard of a couple of horror stories like this.

Best advice I heard was to definitely keep the very last bill of any service you have discontinued (phone, CC, student loan, whatever) and ask that the company send you a letter stating that the account has been closed with a $0 balance.