Today’s Thrifty Tip is to save all your receipts!
Saving all your receipts can definitely pay off. You may need to return an item at the store if it breaks unexpectedly or for other reasons. Great to have your receipt for that. Or perhaps a new mail in rebate will come out that you already qualified for. You will be so “happy” that you kept your receipt then. If you keep them you also have the option of looking at how much you are spending and saving – and can enter them all in the free budget tracker – My Shopping & Savings Tracker (free excel download).
I would love to share with you a great idea on how to quickly save all your receipts.
Get 12 large ziploc bags, write a month on each bag and keep them either in your car or that month’s bag in your purse. Then when you get done shopping you can quickly just drop your receipt in. I love to keep mine in the car center console or glove-box so I can just drop in my shopping receipts as I get out of the store.
Do You Save Your Receipts? What other ways have you found to save them?
About Karrie
Food is my love language. But so is saving money. So I like to combine the two a lot and make thrifty make ahead and freeze meals to save time. Because life is busy, and freezer meals can come to the rescue for all of us. And yes, they actually CAN taste good. Read more...
Comments & Reviews
Liz says
I just started saving my receipts in a coupon organizer. I labeled each pocket with 2 or 3 alphabet letters (a/b) etc. and now I don’t have to dig through a pile to find my Target or Marshalls receipts.
lacey says
Thanks Alisa…. I moved to WA last year only. This info will be of great help. Thanks.
Alisa says
I also wanted to do the sales tax thing for 2009, but was too lazy to add it all up. Instead, we just used the table that they provide based on your income (it estimates how much sales tax you spent). Lacey, you can deduct ALL SALES TAX! If you don’t use the table that is provided, you just need to have ALL of your receipts to prove it just in case you get audited. This deducting sales tax (or state income tax, depending on if your state requires it or not; if your state makes you pay both, you can only deduct one of them) became new a couple years ago. All of the details are on the IRS’s website. Note (for people who don’t know very much if anything about taxes): It is only worth itemizing if it turns out to be more $ than just taking the standard deduction. Usually if you own a home you can itemize because interest on a house adds up to a lot of $!
Monica says
I save my receipts because if you itemize on your tax return you can deduct your Washington State sales tax. If you make large purchases you can deduct more than the standard deduction.
lacey says
I don’t save all my receipts except the electronics items one. I do use a saving tracker though to stay on budget. But hey, someone had also mentioned to use the receipts for filing taxes. How can you claim sales tax and on what items ? It will be great to get some insight on it….. Thanks for sharing
kris says
I used to use envelopes in a shoe box…write down the date (month/year) on each envelope.
But i’ve been a slacker and have just been throwing them in box…
Emily S says
When I get home I put the receipts next to the computer, then enter them into our budget. Then I put them into a small accordian file, divided by month. At the end of the month I get rid of all the receipts for things I won’t return, or just groceries. Then I know exactly where to find receipts for things I do need to return, and I don’t have a lot of other stuff cluttering up my space.
Alisa says
I started saving all my receipts in ’08 and I just put 12 clear sleeves in a 2″ binder ( one for each month) and I stick all of the month’s receipts in each one as well as the bills. So I have 2 big binders: one for receipts and bills, and one for coupons.
Kryss says
I keep all my receipts so at the end of the year we claim the sales tax on our taxes. It worked for us last year and we were able to itemize. Its hard to get my husband to bring me his receipts though. We use some things to claim for work too. It also came in handy when the base of our new shower cracked that we installed Nov of ’09. I was able to go right to the envelope and take the reciept down and get a replacement.