Paperwork - how long do you keep yours for?

[IwishIwasmoreorganised]

By paperwork I mean things like bank and credit card statements, payslips etc

My DH bless him is a real hoarder and he's got every bank statement he's ever had in files around the house and in the loft.

How long is it advised to keep this type of thing for?

I keep mine too long. I really need to sort it out.

I'm going to chuck the bank/credit card/bills after a year I think. Tax stuff you probably need to keep a few years I suppose?

Bank statements - three years worth

Pay slips - three years

Credit card statements - six months

Utilities - two years

Bellavita if that's what you do how did you decide how long to keep different kinds of things for??

I see a lot of sorting and shredding happening here in the not too distant future!

I think the bank statements and pay slips comes from when I worked for a life assurance company before the DS's and we packaged a lot of mortgages and it is just something I have done from then. If you ever changed your mortgage your new lender wanted to see your spending habits.

With regards to credit card statements I just don't see these as important as long as they have been paid, although I must confess that say if I have made a large purchase like the flights that I paid for in January, then I would tend to keep that statement just in case there is a query.

Utilities - DH tends to look for a better deal quite often, so he may ask me for the back copies of these so he can look at usage etc, otherwise I would probably ditch these after a year.

FWIW - I do have a big box next to this computer with loads of paperwork in for shredding!

7 yrs for tax purposes

both DH and I have been self employed so we keep seven years' worth. It's a lot but it is organised (we have one two drawer filing cabinet; nothing else) and I archive it by date so after we've done our tax returns I just pick out the oldest folder and shred it (ie this year I got rid of everything from 2001).

7 years

Everything for 7 years?