How to Organize Your Receipts

Did you keep track of your spending, keeping receipts and tallying them? Maybe you run a home-based business, and need to keep track of all your spending for taxes?

There are many reasons you should keep your receipts, like these 5 reasons, but what about how you store them and keep track of them?

Whatever reason you keep your receipts, we have a simple method outlined here for those who like a tangible method and not a spread sheet.

Here is the method that Natalie L uses for sorting and storing her receipts.

This is a simple, fool proof process. 

Contributed by Natalie Leslie

As long as you file away your receipts right away, you’ll always be able to find them when you need them. 

What you need:

• Shoe Box
• 12 Envelopes (1 for each month – label them) 
• Or an accordion file will also work

I find that organizing by month works for me, because I can usually remember when I purchased something if I have to find the receipt. 

After shopping I file them in the correct month’s envelope. I glance at receipts, I usually jot something down on the envelope if its something I’m likely to return or exchange like “back pack” or “sneakers”.

When its a major purchase, I use a separate envelope “dishwasher 2013” for example.

If you keep your box on top of the fridge, it will always be close when you need to add or find a receipt.

In addition to general purchases, I keep my food receipts separate. I created 24 envelopes, 2 for each month. One says “August” and one says “August Food”. 

Running a home-based daycare, I have to keep food receipts and many other receipts for 7 years, which is another reason I find the shoe boxes work. There is 1 box for each year and they stack and store nicely. The boxes are labeled by year on the outside for quick reference.

Because I have this system, I was quickly able to find over $75 worth of receipts from the time period specified in the recent Activia recall reimbursement.

For more reasons to keep receipts, check out 5 Reasons To Keep Receipts.

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