If it has a lifetime warranty, keep the receipt. I once brought an 11 year old alternator to the auto parts store and got another alternator for free that way.
good point
I keep them all, but don't bother organizing them. You only need to find one on a rare occasion, so it makes sense not to invest a lot of time on the front end organizing them. Just store them by year and go through them when you need one. At New Year's start a new box, folder, envelope, or whatever.
Sometimes it's interesting to check how the price of things like milk and eggs have changed.
As long as the warranty lasts as proof of purchase. After that, it can be binned. If its tax-related, probably 7 years.
For taxes, I would go 10 years. That's the statute of limitations for federal income tax violations.
I'm drowning in receipts. I have to throw 90% of them out, but I shirk the task because each one needs to be destroyed completely so that none of my financial data is exposed. It's a labor I've put off. Meanwhile, the damned things keep building up and up and up. They also need to be sorted, because a small number of them can't be discarded even if they are years old. I started tearing them into little pieces. Now I got a garbage bag full of confetti. And I've still go a mountain of receipts. I don't own a shredder and don't want to waste money buying one. I'm thinking of just separating out the useless ones and having a bonfire of the vanities in my back yard.
Fire is the way to go, 100%
Typically, taxes go back up to 7 years
in reality, just keep a digital copy and zip each year, it'll take so little space, there is no reason to get rid of them,
for lifetime warranty, keep the paper copy, as previously stated.
When you're feeling good you can look at ones from way back and cry at how cheap things were then. I have some going that far back and I don't want to look.
I'm curious about the same. At what point are receipts completely irrelevant for any purpose?
I save unique ones to see prices change over time. Have I ever looked? No, one day...
I've thought there is a good opportunity to crowdsource real receipts over the decades and get true market pricing for the individual buyer.
Ask your psychiatrist then start the new drugs prescribed.
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