Comments on: Lifecycle of a Bill

By: Jessica W

Jessica W — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:46:32 +0000

I hang on to the envelopes that the bills come in--and I use them
for grocery lists--I keep the coupons in them and write my lists
for each store on the back of the bill envelope. Seems like a lot
of good paper to waste. I recycle them, and the unused coupons
after the shopping list (however, if I have extra coupons that I'm
not using on a shopping trip, I just leave them on the product at
the store so whomever is going to buy it can use it).

By: di

di — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:24:44 +0000

3 months is all you keep the old ones? We keep 7 years at least and
have been very glad we did many times. Some things need to be
returned, something turns out to be expensable, stuff just comes
up. When the cc were sued over charging for foreign transaction
fees you were allowed to claim a % or actual. Since we had
everything for the entire window of the suit (which was more than a
decade), we claimed actual and that was $1800. 10 year old stuff
I'm pretty comfortable ditching, and usually it goes out at 7 if we
don't forget. But three months unless you are scanning it at
least... whoa.

By: Tom Lutzenberger

Tom Lutzenberger — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:59:49 +0000

I have found it's a bit safer to keep one year. Then scan them into
a PDF and shred the paper copy. Every once a while a payment
processing issue comes up, and having the older bills handy settles
disputes in my favor fairly quickly.