In our house we have two extreme temperaments when it comes to stuff: The Keep-Everything person and the Toss-Everything person. I’ll let you guess which one I am.
The Keep-Everything person will not toss. Everything is held onto “just in case.” The Toss-Everything person will not keep. Voting cards and tax documents are virtually the only paper items which can survive this person’s ruthless purging habits.
Oddly enough, we both can have trouble finding things. Keep-Everything can’t find things because they are lost under the pile of other things. Toss-Everything can’t find things because she threw them all away. 🙂
Balance.
This bite is really rather simple. Tsh just wants us to streamline our receipt system so we’re not drowning in a sea of unnecessary paper, while still tracking important purchases and documents. For me, this bite is pretty simple. All large purchases are done online, so the receipt is electronic. Small stuff is all cash, so there isn’t a need to balance anything. Medical and housing expense receipts are needed for taxes, so I file those in their respective files. I think that’s about it. Maybe the easiest way to streamline receipts is to not buy much stuff.
If you own your own business, chances are you have much more to track. So how do you do it? Can you offer some advice to all the Keep-Everything and Toss-Everything people out there? How do you decide what to keep and what to toss?
And again, if this bite is too easy for this week, consider heading back and tackling some important ones you don’t want to miss …
Create a Family Purpose Statement
Make a Debt-Free Plan
Wake Up Earlier (Summer is a great–and easy!–time to start this habit!)
Happy weekend! Thanks for reading…
2 thoughts on “#9 Streamline your receipt system {52 bites}”
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This sounds SO familiar. I am a keeper, a sentimental messy. YES I confess.
I also do the bills so it is hard to know when to throw and when to keep. The other half of my life is the thrower and he pitches with little regard sometimes to sentimental or necessity in keeping. We do work together well somedays.
I am not a hoarder as in keeping stuff but filiing is not my thing, I throw them in a pile. I know which pile the bills are paid in and the bills to be paid are in. I which pile is my journalling or blog stuff. I know which pile is toss into recycle. Piles of stuff don’t bother me but to be disorganized does bother me.
I wish there were simpler ways to do all this. I know lots of people pay everything on line which is a new concept for me and has worked well, but the electronic statements are not a choice for some reason having the bill in my hand is more ‘concrete’ to me but in saying that it also adds to the piles of papers.
For now there is no easy answer.
Have you considered neat receipts?
I’m not sure if it’s okay for tax purposes, however, I use it to keep track of grocery bills and scan my receipts. I also scan business cards. The flaw is that you have to sit down and spend time scanning. However, after I do that, I recycle them.
I don’t have a small business so it’s not complicated for me in that way.
I think we have two keepers in my home but I’m working hard to become the tosser. Passports, other vital docs, and 7 yrs of tax returns is all I want hanging around, yet I have come across high school report cards. ugh!