Receipts Saved and Purged

I save receipts. As you can see below, I save them by month. I save them in case I need to return something. Although, they can come in handy if you want to analyze your spending, too. Now most receipts do not need to be saved indefinitely, so I have a little method of keeping them in check.

Receipts filed by month

I purge the receipts after 3 months. When I turn the calendar to a new month, it is time to pull a new envelope out for the current month's receipts. I have found it also helps to purge the oldest envelope of receipts. A few days ago, it was the January envelope I purged. I do actually shred all of the receipts I no longer want to keep. Most are for gas, and groceries anyway. If I come across something that should be saved I set it aside and get it to the appropriate file for such things.

On Thursday, when I shredded the January receipts, it took me about five minutes to complete the task. This is more manageable than my previous method of shredding nearly 9 months worth of receipts or more at one time. Now that is a lot of work. I probably could get rid of the grocery and gas receipts much sooner, but for now this is the method that works for me.

Do you save receipts? Do you have a method for keeping them under control? If you don't keep receipts, I'd like to hear why?