How many pay stubs do you keep?

[Deleted]

I have a bad habit of keeping all my pay stubs. Last year when we moved, I finally got ride of the ones that I had prior to my current job.

But I have all the ones from my current job and I have been here 2 years; so over 2 years worth of paystubs and somewhat the same for my wife.

Since I am in the process of packing up to move, also cleaning up some of my paperword. I am thinking of only keeping the ones as of the beginning of this year. Sounds good?

[illinicheme]

The advice I've heard is that you only need to keep them until you get your W2 and confirm that everything matches.

I still have a few old paper paystubs floating around, but I've discarded most of them. My current employer provides electronic paystubs.

[schildi]

I have no paystubs. I do not even receive any paystubs. It is all online. If I wanted, I could print them or save them, but I don't.

[❤ mollymouser ❤]

My wonderful DH's "paystubs" are all online.

[Deleted]

May 20, 2011 23:50:59 GMT -5 schildi said:

I have no paystubs. I do not even receive any paystubs. It is all online. If I wanted, I could print them or save them, but I don't.

That is awesome. I still get a paper paystub

[wvugurl26]

Molly do you ever print them out? Mine are online under the same system I'm thinking. Somehow my agency uses the military's payroll system. I haven't been there for very long not sure if I should print them out? I know better than to trust them bc what can go wrong will go wrong when the govt is involved it seems.

[cronewitch]

I would keep no more than 2 months plus the end of year until you get your W2. I would only keep the two months if I might refinance a mortgage or something and need to prove income.

There is no reason to keep more if you have year to date numbers on the current stub.

[dragonfly7]

Intentionally, only the prior year's stubs, but I imagine there are multiple old ones in the accordion file where I keep our tax returns and related paperwork.

When I filed for unemployment, it was actually beneficial that I kept so many old stubs because I was promoted from part-time to full-time in the middle of the period the state used to calculate my benefits. I could never have filled out my application accurately without them.

[Deleted]

What's a pay stub? ;-)

I do print out a year-end statement because I typically make a token one-time donation to the United Way out of my pay and that's how I document it for tax purposes.

When I was working for a small consulting firm in NJ, pay statements were hand-written by the old guy who ran the firm. THAT confused the heck out of the attorney handling my husband's side of the divorce.

[greenstone]

Mine are also available online and I have the option of saving them in .pdf file format. Every couple of months I log in and download the latest paystubs. That way I have a printable record on my own computer. I can save all the files on a thumb drive and print them out if needed. I am a financial records packrat so I just like the security of knowing I have a copy and I can keep them into perpetuity without any clutter.
If you are unsure about tossing your old paystubs, you can always scan them and keep the digital file. I love my scanner/printer combo for that reason and they can be got pretty cheap if you don't have one. I can indulge my packrat tendencies to my heart's content without uselessly filling drawers, filing cabinets, and boxes.

[dancinmama]

May 20, 2011 23:36:48 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I have a bad habit of keeping all my pay stubs. Last year when we moved, I finally got ride of the ones that I had prior to my current job.

But I have all the ones from my current job and I have been here 2 years; so over 2 years worth of paystubs and somewhat the same for my wife.

Since I am in the process of packing up to move, also cleaning up some of my paperword. I am thinking of only keeping the ones as of the beginning of this year. Sounds good?

Since you are kind of a when it comes to tracking your income, I would suggest keeping the LAST one for each year as it will give you YTD data you might want some time in the future. I would also keep the first after any major change, like a raise.

[mthistory]

I have all our pay stubs for the last 6 years. However, when we bring them home I scan them in and shred the paper copy. So, we only have digital copies. I guess I could go through and delete them but that seems like a lot of effort.

[Gardening Grandma]

I would keep no more than 2 months plus the end of year until you get your W2. I would only keep the two months if I might refinance a mortgage or something and need to prove income.

This is what I did when I got pay stubs. Now the pension stubs are online. I look at them periodically, but I don't see a reason to download them since there will be a 1099R at the end of the year.

[MN-Investor]

Like greenstone, I'm a financial records packrat. DH's paycheck stubs are available online, downloadable as pdf files, so I download them every two weeks, plus keep track in a spreadsheet.

A couple of years ago I bought a Fujitsu ScanSnap document scanner which is fantastic at scanning a stack of documents. Plus it comes with Adobe Acrobat. It does OCR and saves files in searchable pdf format. I recommend it to any fellow financial records packrat. (Although not everyone can justify spending the $420 it costs at Amazon.)

[lulubean]

Hilarious, I was just out in the garage and looked at my paperwork boxes. I had cc statements from 99, shredded them but have paperwork from 1997 related to taxes.

[azphx1972]

I'm very A/R when it comes to financial paperwork. I have every single credit card receipt I've ever gotten, for example, as well as every single tax return. I got rid of all my paper paystubs though, since I have the W2s to prove how much I contributed to my defined retirement plans, and now I just download the online paystubs whenever I get paid.

[txengineer]

I get electronic pay statement via email

[gsbrq]

May 21, 2011 11:04:03 GMT -5 azphx1972 said:

I'm very A/R when it comes to financial paperwork.

Accounts Receivable?

[phil5185]

You made me go look in the cigar box - mine only go back to 1971. And we still got paper stubs in 1998 (retired).

[haapai]

You might want to make a note of what you were paid when you started the job before shredding them. There's usually no way to separate salary and bonus using an old W-2.

FWIW, pay stubs are golden when unemployment is in the picture.

• They'll tell you what your unemployment check will be if there's any doubt that you will be getting the maximum that the state allows.
  
• If the quarterly pay amounts are unequal, a complete collection of pay stubs can tell you whether you need to file an UI claim immediately or whether waiting a few weeks is an option worth considering.
  
• Since very few people opt to have federal or state income taxes withheld from their unemployment checks, a collection of current year pay stubs is extremely comforting if you are unemployed for more than a month and start wondering about your next tax return. If you have paystubs, you don't need to wonder if you are underwithheld, you can figure it out. Believe me, worrying about your withholding from November to mid-February when your w-2s show up makes a nasty season much, much worse.

If you aren't issued a physical pay stub, getting this information after being terminated can be a humiliating PITA. You will usually lose your easy access to this information shortly before or after being separated.

[DVM gone riding]

I rec keeping at least 3 mos if you ever need to apply for anything. I tend to have the last two years most of time, but I would only intentially keep the end of year stubs. There is a lot more info on a pay stub then on your w-2, for example sick leave left, vacation time, health ins payout so I always keep the last of the year.

[share88]

I don't have any - never have needed one. Mine don't contain things like some of yours (remaining vacation? sick leave?).

[Baby Fawkes]

I used to keep a years worth, but hated having all the paperwork lying around. We're now a digital only household where everything is scanned including receipts etc. All my paychecks are electronic only from work and my W2s are also electronic only.

I would never want to go back to paper versions of all those documents unless there was a seriously compelling reason for me to. The less physical papers these days the happier I am

[RoadToRiches]

None...I don't get it. It's all online. I just logon and can view my stub or my W2.

[Deleted]

Before our company went to all electronic a couple years ago, I would keep the current years stubs and discard them all after doing taxes. I have no clue why I even bothered to keep that many, the most I've ever needed is the past one or two for mortgages.