June 22 - What Are You Planning to Do with Those Receipts?

I’ve worked with individuals who want to control the paper clutter in their homes but also hold onto store receipts. Not just those for large purchases or things they might return (and those make sense), but for everything – even a coffee or lunch from a fast food restaurant.

Usually, they insist that they need to enter these receipts into a spreadsheet or other money tracker so they can understand their spending habits.

However, after a while (even after a few days) this task becomes overwhelming. Not only are they failing to meet their financial goal, they can’t meet their decluttering and organizing goal.

If you’ve been holding onto receipts for a similar reason. Consider tossing any receipts that you don’t need for reference.

If you want to track you spending, start fresh. First, before saving more receipts, decide how you’ll track your expenses. Look for an app or a spreadsheet, whatever you’ll be comfortable with. Saving the receipts doesn’t give you any information, so select a tracker first to in insight into your spending habits.