Should we save paper copies of outdated financial statements or keep electronically?

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I am in the process of cleaning up and getting rid of old financial paper statements which go back ~30 years.
I am realizing that I have been saving way too much old financial documents and am starting the shredding process. I have a few thoughts and wonder if there are better options.

What is everyone doing to manage your personal office?
How long do save these quarterly/yearly statements?
Do you save them on your computer or an external drive?
Do you save only year end financial statements to minimize clutter?

 

[Kings over Queens]

I'm not consistant in our approach.

I have the hard copy of tax return I've ever filed. Every last one. I happen to like this and find in interesting to look back to different points in our lives. My CPA thinks I'm nuts.

We have at least a decade worth of credit card statements with receipts. Can't tell you why.

I stopped keeping paper copies of account statements instead host them on my computer with a backup to the cloud. I stopped balancing my checking and savings accounts so there are no statements to file, just make sure the online balance mirrors what's in quickbooks.

I do keep all of our EOB's in the respective tax year tax return should I need them, but that process could be digitized as well.

 

[old medic]

When we sold our house and moved out, we had BOXES with about every statement and receipt ever collected. When done shredding we had just the tax related paperwork over the previous 10 years. Now its
1) Tax related and year end statements both paper and scanned. Paper gets shredded after 7 years.
2) Receipts for return, warranty purposes, HSA reimbursements, also scanned since most printed will fade out.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I keep paper income tax records forever, so far. Plus I have PDFs of many, many years of the return documents. All other paper is gone. I have saved brokerage monthly statements to my computer (and now the cloud) since 2008. I will keep these forever since they don’t take up much room. I don’t save bank statements or and other monthly statements at all.

 

[braumeister]

I haven't kept any financial statements in decades.
It only takes a few seconds to scan one into a pdf file and save it on the computer, then into the shredder.
I've never had a problem printing out a pdf when I happened (rarely) to need a hard copy. Everyone accepts that.

 

[Midpack]

I don’t keep any hard copy financial docs anymore. I did have every tax return back to the 80’s, but I scanned them all into pdf format and shredded them years ago. I keep them on my desktop computer, an external backup HD and a flash drive in a fireproof safe. I’m not worried at all. All our records are digital now.

 

[markelp]

Scans of the important documents (all tax year docs, home records, receipt for expensive items, copies of IDs, passports, deeds, titles, etc) are stored locally and encrypted online.

I also have seven accordion style organizer boxes that keep 7 years of printed documents. Early January I take the oldest box, shred the contents, print a new label with the current year and start over. I rarely need the printed docs, but have the space and enjoy the peace of mind they are available if needed.

 

[jim584672]

Scanned in and thrown out. Now all electronic pdfs going forward.

 

[audreyh1]

I just keep 7 years of tax return support documents received on paper. Get rid of older files. Tax returns themselves and most docs are PDF and we save those electronically. There are some older IRA tax filings I’ve kept a copy of because might be needed. TurboTax does track this.

For normal expenses utilities, insurance etc. I just keep 2 maybe 3 years worth. I usually have the opening docs for any financial account if received in the mail, but only keep electronic statements.

Credit cards - usually shred any paper receipts within 3 months of reconciling the statements. I only get electronic statements.

I’ve worked very hard to eliminate any mail, especially mailed financial documents. And I don’t print out anything unless I need to show it to somebody. As a result, I get very little paper in the mail, and very little to file. And I very rarely need to scan anything - generally just docs we have to physically sign and return.

 

[scrabbler1]

Before 2024, I kept monthly paper statements for my main mutual fund account for the entire calendar year until I got the year-end statement. Then I would throw out the monthly statements. In 2024, I switched to e-delivery for the monthly statements which I downloaded and keep, even after I got the annual statement. Those PDF files eventually get saved onto a thumb drive as part of my regular file back-up procedure.

Since around 2014, I have been preparing my income tax returns on the free fillable files the IRS and my state tax department has been producing. That is when I began saving some supporting documents (i.e. 1099s, annual statements) electronically even though I also keep the paper version.

For regular, routine bills, I keep one calendar year plus the current year in progress. This means I have just gotten rid of my 2023 statements and receipts, unless there is a compelling reason to keep them around (i.e. I put notes on them I need to view again in the future). For my co-op monthly bills, which I receive and pay electronically and automatically, I print out only the January one because the bill doesn't change throughout the year. (If it does, I print the new one out, too.)

For medical bills, I keep the EOBs for a year but I don't save them electronically, as the insurance company does so. I do keep a summary spreadsheet for each year's EOBs, though. And for my 2015 hospital stay, I have kept all the paper records.

When I was working, I kept all the quarterly statement for my 401k, as they gave us no year-end statements. Like with my EOBs, I kept a spreadsheet which kept track of my 401k and ESOP account. However, when my employer changed 401k plan administrators (it happened twice in 23 years), I kept only the last statement from the old plan administrator. When I left the company in late 2008, I kept only the last quarterly statement from the last plan administrator.

edit:: I shred anything which includes any personal information.

 

[PatrickA5]

I haven't gotten into the scanning thing....sounds like w*rk. Having said that, I have very little paperwork.

I don't get any paper statements. I do print out the year end brokerage statement (I only have one). I also print out the year end bank statement.

I print out my bills once a year and put a copy in my "When I'm Dead" book so my heirs have something to go on if I croak unexpectedly.

I have all of my tax returns going back to mid-70s. This is my last paper stuff that I need to tackle.

I'm trying to not leave a mess like my dad did. It took me weeks to go through his paper. He had utility bills going back 40 years crammed into every drawer in the house. I found the title to his current car hidden in a folder of bills from 1965.

 

[Koolau]

I keep hard copies of anything I even imagine I might need. YMMV

 

[aja8888]

I just keep 7 years of personal income tax filings and all my closed business records going back to incorporation in 1998. All other stuff goes into the shredder.

 

[Sunset]

Having a rental means I keep tax returns, receipts, etc forever.

Maybe that caused my hoarding syndrome, and I can claim therapy as an expense

 

[Al18]

I’ve kept paper copies of everything and now running out of space. I’ve been looking at new All In One ink jet printers and noticed some have automatic document feeders, that can scan 2 sided documents and convert them to a PDF in one step, starting at $99. Seems like many printers are now on sale.

 

[Aerides]

In my prior life I had a role in corporate document management. Keeping stuff is important, but getting rid of it the moment you can is also just as important.

Most things were required to be stored for 7 years (and digital was fine), but if you kept things too long, and the noses came sniffing, then all that old stuff could be liabilities.

Aside from that, paper is clutter, takes up space, and is flammable. If you want to keep the info, keep it digital.

 

[NeilDH]

I have the hard copy of tax return I've ever filed. Every last one. I happen to like this and find in interesting to look back to different points in our lives.

I am the same way! But finally last year I had time to toss all the -supporting- documents for most of those returns. I want to keep just three years’ worth of those (it’d be six if there’s ever any sign of IRS disputes).

I need to keep evidence of taxable securities purchases for cost basis purposes; I can do that with PDFs, and nowadays the institutions also keep track of that. No paper bank or credit card or utility statements. I do get some mutual statements by mail, but these fall under the three-year tax document rule.

I manage or help manage finances for two elders who are not online much if at all. For them, there’s that tax document rule, then there’s basically scribbler1’s previous-year rule as said above for most other statements and receipts, in case I need to look up expenses or income for tax purposes.

Of course there are statements to save forever related to home purchases, contracts, rental income, maybe a few other things in case there are disputes like major medical expenses.

 

[HarveyS]

I'm 100% electronic copies. I got rid of all the old paper copies when I moved in 2020. Burned most of the documents because shredding would have taken too long.

 

[TheWizard]

I put all supporting tax related documents into a 9x12 manila envelope each year.
Beyond that, I no longer get paper copies of CC activity or investment balances. So nothing to scan or throw out there...

 

[5Miler]

About three years ago I cleaned out my office from useless paper I had been hoarding since the 80's. I had every paycheck stub I ever received, expense report copies from jobs I haven't held in 30 years, many versions of resumes, employee files (I worked from home), customer files and lots of other crazy things. At least it was organized.

Now I keep very little as I can access utility bills online, same with bank statements, previous RE Tax bills, Medicare/Medigap insurance EOBs so my filing cabinet is pretty empty these days. I keep a copy of the current years investment docs but mainly for cost basis in taxable account. I only care about current balance in Roth/IRA accounts. It's all in Quicken in any event.

My biggest failing is I still keep hard copies of all of my tax returns going back to 1984 but I have been giving them the hairy eyeball lately and may just convert them to PDFs as others have done.

I also have a filing cabinet in my basement where I file any receipt connected to a purchase with a warranty and it has come in very handy over the years saving me a lot of money. Biggest issue is remembering to throw a file out once the warranty expires.

 

[MRG]

How are you backing up your electronic copies? Seems like thats important.

 

[rk911]

I keep hard copies of anything that touches an income tax return for 7-years. I also scan those returns and supporting documents and keep those PDFs forever on a CD. Everything else is scanned and saved as a PDF for the current year + 3 years and kept on primary hard drive. Those files are backed up locally and into the cloud.

 

[rembrandt]

I threw out everything except the last ten years of papers. If I did not need it until this point, I will never need it.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

How are you backing up your electronic copies? Seems like thats important.

Thanks to all and appreciate all the thoughts and ideas.

I have been hesitant to trust my personal finance information on the internet or the Cloud or Onedrive.

However, after reading some of the comments, I may reconsider, and store personal files on an external drive.

 

[audreyh1]

We keep computer backups on external drives and swap out regularly at our bank safe deposit box.