Managing receipts...

Have you ever been in search of something…? I have been… in fact everyday… in search of things at home :)…

I was looking for something yesterday and found a zip top bag… zip top bag full of receipts… dated 2007, 2008…

I remember the day I put them in… yet another day when I was trying to organize my receipts… I put a bunch in a zip top bag and put it in the draw and eventually stuffed lot of other things in it... And the zip top bag found a place behind the draw to rest… and yesterday I woke him up…

The reason I didn’t add more zip top bags because, shortly after that I got a beautiful box to hold my receipts and kept in my kitchen so that I can stuff it with all the receipts as long as it chocked…:)

Yesterday, I opened the box and realized that it was struggling to breathe… and the time to save its life had come…

I and my husband started cleaning it and shredding whatever we didn’t need…

Next time when I purchase something…I need to think… make a conscious effort to organize them…

Step 1: I need to find a place for it… A place for everything and everything in its place…

Step 2: I need to categorize them. Clip the
 Grocery receipts, restaurant receipts etc together,
 Other things - things that has a possibility to get back to the store, - small appliances etc…
 Business receipts if any…
 Large priced items receipts,
 Everything else … there is always miscellaneous category :)

Step 3: Discard them when I am sure I don’t need them and keep the one I need in a safe place.

And now I set some rules – and I hope to follow :)
1. Check every day/week if my bank has charged the right amount to my account. Esp. the grocery receipts and shred them. I don’t need them since I must have consumed most of them by now.
2. Scan the large priced Item and keep the bills in a separate box/bag and label them – I hardly have such receipts now… and if at all I have I need to do it.
3. Put the business receipts together… if at all I have one I need to claim…
4. Misc. receipts – Decide now and either keep it safely or let it go…

To my friends who knows me and who visits me often: Don’t look at me that way… I am trying to be spic and span… I am making an attempt to do that…

You will see my home, neat as a new pin soon…:) First Step… making an effort… :) simple step isn’t it… I am just doing that… :) and if you have any tips, please share it with me…

If any of you have the same issues… try to take that simple step… and may be you will move faster than you expected towards achieving it and if you are not able to manage it… No worries… May be some super power will help you some day…

Hey Technology!!!… Is there any brain somewhere in someplace thinking about this…? As paper money has been replaced with plastic money… are we all going to have days where the paper receipts are replaced by something… virtual…?

Who knows…? May be my son will not deal with those clutters when he grows up… or may be the day will come soon that even I don’t have to deal with it… Simple!!!

And it’s always SIMPLE when someone else does the work, isn’t it???
see ya...