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Do you keep the receipts?


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Do you. DO YOU?!
Spambots be gone
3%
 3%  [ 2 ]
No. Why in the world would you do that?
31%
 31%  [ 17 ]
Yes, in the event something needs to be returned to the store.
22%
 22%  [ 12 ]
Yes, it's fun to look back and see when you bought things, or see other items you bought at the same time.
11%
 11%  [ 6 ]
Yes, to track spending.
18%
 18%  [ 10 ]
Yes, for any other reason
12%
 12%  [ 7 ]
Total Votes : 54

Author Message
st_owly



Joined: 20 May 2008
Posts: 5234
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:28 am Reply with quote
Poll requested by victor_viper. So, do you keep your receipts?

I used to, for nostalgia's sake, but I don't any more because most of them faded so they were useless anyway, and I moved house and couldn't be bothered lugging them with me. I don't go as far as leaving them at the shop in case I end up buying a duplicate thing (It does happen occasionally) but I'll chuck them after a few days. Now I just keep an Excel spreadsheet to track my budget, and I have a pretty good memory of what I bought when.
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The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:10 am Reply with quote
I keep a spreadsheet as well, but I also keep my receipts in folders separated by year. I don't know, something about throwing away a receipt for something I spent so much money on and is such a big part of my life seems weird.
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9809
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 8:50 am Reply with quote
I keep all receipts for everything, not just anime. I use them to track spending, even cash spending. I used to keep them indefinately and still have boxes of stuff from the 80s that I need to go through and shred.

At the end of the year I go through all the receipts and bills and dump anything that is of no interest. I do keep receipts for anything I still have. When the question came up in the retail forum I was able to go back and reconstruct my spending for the whole year. While I have older documents, I'm not sure how far back I could go accurately on the issue of anime/manga expenses since the receipts from the late 90s and early 00s often do not always show what they are for.
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Tenbyakugon



Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 788
Location: Ohio, United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:03 am Reply with quote
I keep them until my bank statement arrives in the mail at the start of each month and I can confirm every transaction as being correct based on the receipts I've kept. Until then, I hold onto them and keep track of them in my checkbook. Even with online banking services, I still recommend using a checkbook so as to have good accuracy as far as what you still have left to spend when you don't have access to the Internet.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar


Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 16935
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:07 pm Reply with quote
I keep receipts for any major purchases for a few years. Stuff like appliances, tv's, etc. I keep the rest of my receipts for a few days until they've cleared my account and I balance my checkbook. I never used to but after a few screw ups where places charged the wrong amount I started to. I always kept important receipts but now I keep them all until they clear my account. I just don't trust people much anymore so I'd rather be safe than sorry. It amazes me how many of my friends don't even have a checkbook let alone save receipts to make sure they get charged the right amount on purchases.
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Alan45
Village Elder



Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 9809
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:23 pm Reply with quote
I use a computer program to track all my accounts, checkbook, credit cards, savings etc. I even use it to track cash but that always has some errors. When the bill comes I compare my record to the bill and set aside the receipts to keep or thow.

This comes in handy. A couple of months back, my credit card company called to ask if I had authorized several suspicious charges. I was able to tell them no. They disallowed the charges and issued a new card.

This weekend while paying other bills I noticed on the program that I had not yet paid the cable/internet bill for August. I'm not sure why it didn't come this month but I was able to go to their store front and pay the bill.
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Saffire



Joined: 25 Nov 2007
Posts: 1255
Location: Iowa, USA
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:44 pm Reply with quote
I don't consciously save receipts unless it's a large purchase ($500 seems to be my threshold). But since I do the bulk of my shopping online, I have receipts for most purchases anyways thanks to confirmation emails. I never delete email so it works out fairly well.
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larinon



Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Posts: 992
Location: Midland, TX
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:05 pm Reply with quote
I keep any receipt that has my name and all or part of my debit card number or credit card number on it so that I can take it home and shred it once it's no longer needed. Other than what I need to save, anything with name, address, phone #, card #s, etc. is shredded to prevent identity theft.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 4:12 pm Reply with quote
The poll is missing the answer "Yes, when I can deduct the cost of the item for tax purposes."

I pay for nearly everything that matters via debit card, so I just download the year's data from my online banking site into a spreadsheet and determine the totals that can be deducted.
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ikillchicken



Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Posts: 7272
Location: Vancouver
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 5:42 pm Reply with quote
Not to nitpick but I actually couldn't pick an answer from the choices given. I totally understand why one would (and probably should) keep their receipts. I just can't really be bothered to do so myself.
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victor viper



Joined: 18 Jun 2011
Posts: 630
Location: The deep south
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 7:23 pm Reply with quote
At some point I picked up the habit of tucking the receipt inside the case whenever I bought an anime DVD, and a friend of mine noted that they did exactly the same thing. After a while, it became fun to be able to look back and remember exactly when and where certain things were bought. Some examples from off the shelf:

Cardcaptor Sakura, volume 1-bought at a local used bookstore for $12 in December 2002.

Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko OVA-bought at Sam Goody in June of 2002 for the low, low price of $39.99 plus tax, although I did get to apply one of the many $5 Triple Play Vouchers I earned after one of their Triple Points days.

End of Evangelion-found out in the wild for $19 back in 2006.

Excel Saga-each single bought individually at Best Buy. It hard to believe that I once liked this show enough to buy all the singles religiously as they were released.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
Posts: 15433
Location: Brisbane, Australia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:54 pm Reply with quote
I have a big plastic bag of receipts from manga, anime, and games. If I had to give a reason, I suppose I had the crazy idea that someone could steal my identity from my receipts ending up in the bin.

To be honest some of it has probably been my slight OCD. I have spent time trying to organize them all by their source and such which can take a while, but I have not really mapped them though I have studied accounting. I think if I did start I would go over the top in a system, so it has just been an increasing pile. Well I have started throwing some new ones out. Too many packets of yugioh cards which I decide to be OCD about instead.
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The Lost Prophet



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 46
Location: Australia, Adelaide
PostPosted: Thu Sep 06, 2012 11:52 am Reply with quote
Not necessary in most cases for me. The shops I go to know me, and I have a card that has a record of purchases for some of these. Everything else I buy online.
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Bright_Spear



Joined: 24 Jul 2012
Posts: 340
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 6:05 pm Reply with quote
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Last edited by Bright_Spear on Tue May 06, 2014 2:38 am; edited 1 time in total
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Sailor S





PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2012 2:59 am Reply with quote
I used to keep my receipts, back when I was still purchasing anime from B&M stores. Now since I buy 100% of my anime online, there's no receipt to keep, so I track stuff both with a spreadsheet and if I really needed to look through my yearly purchases, I could just bring up my bank statements online. I probably only spend between $50 and $100 in cash each month, the rest of my purchases are all made with my debit card so it's pretty easy to track when I'm spending my money on without having to keep receipts for anything. I'll hang on to receipts for clothes or other things that might crap out on me for whatever reason for a period of time, but otherwise whenever I get a big stack of receipts I'll just toss em in the shredder.
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