Keeping Utility Bills

Jellybaby1

I've checked boards forums and I've no idea where this question should be, so please move if I'm wrong. I'm spring cleaning, and we have tons of paper in the form of utility bills, credit card bills, insurance documents, etc piling up over the years. How long should we keep bills for, is there a recommended timespan?

locustfurnace

personally I myself keep everything within 13 months, as in say its March now so I have my esb bills back to Feb last year, same with visa, bank, internet, phone etc... but thats just me

as for pensions, mortgage and really important stuff, I hang on to it all...

Jellybaby1

Thanks. Time for me to do some serious sifting of bills though.

ejmaztec

If you're in business, 6 years is the answer. If not, the length of time depends on how depressed you want to be looking at how much they've gone up over the years.

Jellybaby1

ejmaztec wrote: »

If you're in business, 6 years is the answer. If not, the length of time depends on how depressed you want to be looking at how much they've gone up over the years.

No business, just domestic here, and yes I'm very depressed looking at the figures, and the pile of recyclable paper too.!! :eek::) TBH it's going to be a job to get the pile down to the six years alone!

Faolchu

utility bills and bank statements I normally keep about a years worth. just a word of advice make sur ewhen you do get rid of them to shred them properly or burn them dont just crumple them and bin them.

insurance documentation, pension documentation, pay slips, tax certs i usually keep indefinitly

MOH

I've got into the habit of scanning them, keeping the paper ones for a year or so and then shredding them. That way I've always got the scanned backup if there's any issue with any of the utility providers.

Anything to do with the revenue, social welfare, or the like I'd keep indefinitely though.

keithclancy

I use a combination of Finereader and Evernote.


Finereader does pretty much perfect OCR on all the documents I scan in and then Evernote does the cloud storage (think it was 30 euros for the year)

Now I can shred 8.5 kilos of paper and if I want to search a bill I can search any text in any document.

E.G. "P60 2001"
Up pops the p60 from 2001

Even scan in my receipts so I can stick in "Sony Vaio"
and up pops the receipt for the Laptop

I only store Official docs (Birth Certs, etc) and now I have 1 folder as opposed to a whole unmanageable box of crap.

Took about 3 hours but totally worth it

danjo-xx

don't for get on line billing, with esb for example, I download the bill pdf file and save it. I Also screenshot the list of paid bills summary which can cover nearly a year all though my bank statements will show amount paid. anyway.

dotsman

danjo-xx wrote: »

don't for get on line billing, with esb for example, I download the bill pdf fine and save it. I Also screenshot the list of paid bills summary which can cover nearly a year all though my bank statements will show amount paid. anyway.

Absolutely the best way to do things. I used to have a load of utility bills/statements (I don't like throwing these things out in case I ever need them). A few years ago, as banks/utilities offered online statements/billing, I always opted for it. Now, I have every bill/statement stored in an easy to find place, going back years, and no mess!

Jellybaby1

Thanks for all your input, lots of great innovative ideas there which I will be looking at.