Paperwork, how long should you keep bills etc?

[Linnet]

Mainly phone bills, gas statements, electric statements, bank statements etc?

Can you tell I'm trying to plough my way through my paperwork mess? lol

I think it's 6 years for bank statements. I keep everything as I never underestimate the capacity for utilities companies to cock up.

I keep them all bursting out of a filing cabinet. DH keeps nothig as he says you can get it all onlione. He had to request copies of bank statements a while back and got them no problem.

Well I sorted everything out tonight, have thrown out, well put in a pile to be shredded, insurance documents from 10 years ago, credit card statements from 10 years ago, phone bills from last house 7 years ago.

I'm feeling very proud of myself, now just have to tackle the shredding!

I only keep bills and statements for 6 month maximum.
I'm always shredding things up to put in the compost bin.

i only keep things for six months now as well. have had bills from 6 years back before, but wasn't ever sure why i was keeping them (they looked nice in their little files?) so decided enough was enough so to speak

we only keep bank statements and mortgage statements
cc bills for a few months then are chuck

water, gas, elec - 1 year so I can compare year on year ( sad I know)

You should keep bank statements & pay slips for a year as you may be asked to show them if you change your mortgage.

You can always get duplicates if you've chucked out the bank statements, but maybe not the pay slips?

last year I had a letter form the tax man wanting payslips from 4 years ago, They had found some descepency. It turns out to be only about £20 so they let me keep it!