Your $tock Mom

BRAVO!  Be proud of yourself.  I take it that you just arrived at this post after reading the post, “It Pays … To Be Organized!”  Well, let me get right to the point so that you can begin to implement the following procedure:

First:  Collect and retain all receipts for every item that you purchase with your credit card for each month of that card’s billing cycle – the billing period/cycle closing date is printed on your statement; remember it.  Keep those receipts together in an envelope as previously discussed; then, crosscheck them with the corresponding monthly statement when it arrives.  If you find any discrepancies on the bill, you will have the receipt as confirmation and documentation to assist with the correction of any errors.

Second:  After payment of the monthly statement, place the receipts in the fold of the corresponding monthly statement and place the statement into an envelope with the name of your credit card and the current year clearly labeled on the face of the envelope.  Follow this process with every monthly statement and its corresponding receipts by placing each month’s credit card bill, in sequence, with the rest of the bills for the year into the labeled envelope.

Third:  Place each year’s envelope with those of previous years’ envelopes.  You might find it more useful to keep these yearly credit card records together and not with the corresponding taxes paperwork.  I have found that having all my credit card statements, with their corresponding receipts, placed in one file in one location to be extremely helpful any time that I needed to refer to a previous purchase or expense and its receipt.

That’s it.  Now you can go and get your laundry folded and put away, unload the dishwasher, walk the dog or cat, enjoy your dinner, and then come back here for more money-making morsels.