Thursday, November 14, 2019

Financial or insurance records


  Interesting Car: Not your mama's VW



For today:
How long do you keep cancelled checks, receipts and bills you pay and or receive?  For years I kept them forever, meaning never threw them away.  A few years ago I tried burning my collection of checks, it was a mess, like burning a Sears and Roebuck catalog, very slow.

I had them all, personal and business, many thousands. I took a barrel filled it with water added some bleach and let it set for a week. Then I stirred them and made paper ‘snow’ balls of the remainder. I did the same with many records of houses I had built.

As I did it I wondered why I had kept them, not once did I remember having to have or refer to them? So after I downsized I tried to keep our record keeping to a minimum (2-3 yrs). At times I would go thru and thin out the older stuff.

THEN this week we got a bill from a medical firm for a few hundred dollars, saying our ins nor Medicare had paid anything on the total.

No problem I says to myself. I pulled the folders. Since the bill was for normal yearly  ‘bloodwork’ and the ins had always covered it all, I figured to look at last year’s bill. All I could find was last year’s bill for the exact amount with a note saying the bill would not be paid because it was a double billing. BUT then I could not find the original bill where the ins had paid, there was NOTHING for that date in my file.

So it seems with age I am not keeping good records and will have to find a better way to prove we do not owe this. I think we are being double billed again. It sure would be nice to have this paperwork in my hand when I go to complain.  That will probably be next year when we get back.  So we will wait.  It bothers Sherry and I to OWE bills. WE always pay before the due date.
We even pay our taxes early.  I hate to admit my record keeping has gone to pot. OUCH.  I guess I am getting OLD---(and it hurts my ego.  LOL)
Nite Shipslog

5 comments:

Chatty Crone said...

Can you get a copy of the bills and payments? Call the insurance co. that said it was a double bill and they probably have the info. We all do that - it is not age!

betty said...

I have so much stuff electronically these days for records that I haven't seen a canceled check for years, although I can get one from the bank if I need to prove something. All bills come email too and a lot set up on auto pay. That makes it hard though because in Arizona we need to get a new license that will be acceptable for airline travel and one of the things we need to prove our identify is a bill from a utility company that comes in the mail. All come electronically so not sure how that is going to work. I too am thinking you were billed twice, hopefully it will be an easy fix!

betty

Mevely317 said...

My mother was super careful about keeping paper records … for 7 years, I think they advised. Then I, too, became a bit of a pack rat. Call if frustration or panic:at the 11th hour of our cross-country move, I threw all sorts of records into a big box and carried them to Office Depot to be securely shredded.
Blame it on (my) old age, but I'm too tired to keep up with paper records; most everything we have is saved online.

Sheila Y said...

You probably could check Medicare and your insurance online. I’ve held onto them too long. I had a lot shredded before we left NC but still have some I didn’t have time to get through.
Take care, Sheila

Lisa said...

We keep records for at least 7 years. Then we shred them. It mostly tax stuff since we do a lot online now. If you have a lot of stuff to shred, you can check when the big shredder will be in town. You can take box loads to them to shred for free.

Catching up
Lisa