Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

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abuss368
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Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by abuss368 »

Bogleheads,

To follow up from another thread, I am interested in feedback and thoughts related to record retention for debt statements such as a mortgage and line of credit. Does anyone print these statements from a website each month and retain? If so, how long? Do you not bother to print or retain statements that are typically available online?

I was considering shredding our pile of monthly statements from over the years and retaining the year end one only. The year end statement could be attached to any Form 1098 tax statements and filed in the tax folder. No need to retain large binders with copies of never to be used again statements.

Thoughts?
John C. Bogle: “Simplicity is the master key to financial success."
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abuss368
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by abuss368 »

To follow up from my earlier post, while I was initially referring to mortgage and line of credit statements, we could include student loans, credit cards, personal loans, vehicle loans, etc. In other words, any form of debt and the related statements.

Thanks!
John C. Bogle: “Simplicity is the master key to financial success."
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Duckie
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by Duckie »

abuss368 wrote:Does anyone print these statements from a website each month and retain? If so, how long? Do you not bother to print or retain statements that are typically available online?
I download statements to my computer so that I have a copy but I don't print them out.
I was considering shredding our pile of monthly statements from over the years and retaining the year end one only.
Most times the December statement only covers December. That's fine if you only need the last number but if you need more details you may need to save more.
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by abuss368 »

Duckie wrote:
abuss368 wrote:Does anyone print these statements from a website each month and retain? If so, how long? Do you not bother to print or retain statements that are typically available online?
I download statements to my computer so that I have a copy but I don't print them out.
I was considering shredding our pile of monthly statements from over the years and retaining the year end one only.
Most times the December statement only covers December. That's fine if you only need the last number but if you need more details you may need to save more.
True in terms of the December statement. Our loans however show the YTD activity. This prompted me to ask the question.
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Stonebr
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by Stonebr »

It's been a long time since we had any debt, but when we did, we had it modeled in Excel so we could keep tabs on the creditor. As long as the creditor was calculating things correctly, we would shred anything older than the most current statement. For annual summary of the mortgage, they send a tax statement which would go into that year's tax folder.

Water under the bridge.
"have more than thou showest, | speak less than thou knowest" -- The Fool in King Lear
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by Spirit Rider »

With pretty much all debt providers making statements downloadable, why wouldn't you just download them and same them indefinitely.

In the short term, you might need to dispute a credit card charge. You have sixty (60) days from the statement including that charge. There are certainly items that might need to be referenced for the most recent tax return and retained for the required periods. You may have items that it might be useful to have at least a date of that purchase.

There is a big difference between a file cabinet of paper and a flash drive or cloud storage.
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by abuss368 »

Useful points in this thread.

Thanks!
John C. Bogle: “Simplicity is the master key to financial success."
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by SmileyFace »

Spirit Rider wrote:With pretty much all debt providers making statements downloadable, why wouldn't you just download them and same them indefinitely.
Agreed - I save every statement for everything in a series of folders. Storage space is so cheap these days and PDF files are so small. You can fit a lifetime of statements on a 1TB drive which costs $50. You can then periodically make a copy of the drive and store the extra one in your safety deposit box - if you lose everything in a fire - you have an off-site backup. (Or you can take your chances with cloud storage....).
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by jhfenton »

Stonebr wrote:It's been a long time since we had any debt, but when we did, we had it modeled in Excel so we could keep tabs on the creditor. As long as the creditor was calculating things correctly, we would shred anything older than the most current statement. For annual summary of the mortgage, they send a tax statement which would go into that year's tax folder.

Water under the bridge.
This is our approach. At this point, it's our mortgage and a low-interest car loan, but I used to do the same thing with our student loans. I have them modeled in Excel. I verify the outstanding balance every month and move on. I see no reason to keep monthly statements. For tax purposes, I obviously keep the mortgage tax statements (and used to keep the student loan interest statements).

I also keep the annual credit card summary which lists all of the year's charges. It is also useful for tax purposes. Again, I don't see the need to keep monthly statements, PDF or otherwise. I dispute any questionable charges immediately, and I pay off the balance every month. We only use the CC for ease of record keeping, the rewards, and fraud protection.

I don't see any benefit to keeping monthly statements.
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by abuss368 »

I shredded all loan statements today! What a huge pile of paper that I have never used or needed.
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Re: Record Retention - Monthly Debt Statements

Post by Saving$ »

I keep pdf's.
Got tired of going to multiple web sites each month to download the statements, and explored various online statement aggregators. After testing several, i settled on Finovera. It is not perfect, but alot better than going to multiple sites. I figure once year, probably at tax time, I will download all the statements from Finovera to my hard drive. For the old stuff in the file cabinet, I bought a $50 sheet feed scanner from Office Depot and scanned them all one year at a time. It has come in handy several times to have old statements.
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