While natural disasters cannot be prevented, their effect on personal lives can be minimized by taking action to organize and save your important records in a safe place.
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Also at the end of tax season, people wonder which personal and financial records they need to save and for what purpose. Some of us like to save everything forever. Others can’t wait to discard paper right away.
So what’s the best way to decide whether to save or discard a record? Here are a few tips and resources to help you decide what to keep… and for how long.
D2GO2 helps you organize and store all your important records in one safe and secure place… and makes it available to you anytime, anyplace, and from any web or mobile device. You can scan or capture document images with your scanner, tablet or smartphone, and upload to your own personal cloud for easy access to view, print, and forward.
D2GO2 also includes 40 easy-to-use forms to record the whereabouts of critical legal, financial, and personal records.
Personal Records Retention Guidelines…
Tax Returns: Keep your tax records for seven years. IRS has 3 years to audit you from the date you filed your taxes and it is up to you to have all of the backup information that went into your returns.
Bank Statements: If you want to apply for a mortgage, keep a three-month history. Otherwise, the bank has all the records you’ll ever need.
ATM Receipts: Keep these until you balance your bank statement and then shred them.
Credit Card Statements: Keep three months on hand.
Medical Insurance: This includes premium statements, doctor bills, prescriptions, hospital bills, etc. Keep these for five years from the date of service rendered.
Home Insurance: The minimum suggested is five years. However, if you think that you may have any issues in the future, save them for ten years.
Pay Stubs: Since each paycheck contains the history for all the past stubs, you only need to save the latest pay stub. If you are planning to get a new mortgage, save the last few months of pay stubs.
Investment Documents: If you have 401K or other investments you are inundated with prospectus, privacy notices, address confirmations, and on and on. Don’t keep any of these unless you plan to act on them. You should retain three months of balance statement, and anytime you purchase new investments you should retain that until you sell the investment and complete your taxes for the year.
Home Repairs: These should be kept for ten years in case you need to prove something with regard to guarantees of workmanship. If you are doing home renovations, make sure you get the satisfaction of lien from the contractors doing the work. Keep that document as long as you own the property.
Utility Bills: If you are writing off your utility bills, you may need to keep them as tax records. Otherwise, only keep the last three months.
Mortgage Documents: Keep the loan information for the duration of the mortgage. After you’ve paid off the mortgage, the bank is obligated to record a satisfaction of mortgage. You should keep this document as long as you own the home.
Warranty Documents: Anytime you get rid of an appliance or software that had warranty documentation, you can shred the warranties at the same time.
Personal Records: These records should be kept indefinitely and in a safe deposit box…
- Birth certificates [If you have lost any birth certificates, apply for replacements before there is a pressing need]
- Marriage certificates
- Divorce and adoption papers
- Citizenship records
- Military service papers.
Ownership Records: Any paper that serves as proof of ownership should be saved until the asset is sold. This would include such papers as deeds for real estate, mortgage papers, automobile titles, bonds, and stock certificates.
One final suggestion…
At least once a year, you should go through your files and shred everything that is no longer needed.
After determining what personal papers you wish to discard, be sure to shred all that contain personal information. Always use a cross-cut or confetti shredder.
Cheers and we’ll see you soon.
Anant Goel
Producer CEO – RKNet Studios
D2GO2 