You'll get replies from some who are better educated on the subject, but my first thought was why not just keep them in a file in your desk or a filing cabinet, along with your bank statements, etc.? If someone were to break into your house, it seems unlikely they'd be interested in your files.

I might also rethink what you're doing regarding keeping the e-mailed receipts on your laptop. If you should have something catastrophic happen to your laptop, like a virus, or a crash of your hard drive, you could potentially lose them. Why not print hard copies of them and store them with the other receipts?

If you want to save a copy of something, scan it, save it on a USB drive and keep it in your safety deposit box.

Anything stored on a computer-related box that's connected to the internet isn't safe, either. Apart, that is, from the crash of a hard drive.

If you're worried about numbers and such - a magic marker can cause damage at times, but at times can be helpful.

o j

I think it is important to answer the question that has been posed, and the question is which is safer from "possible prying eyes" in the house, sending them to "the cloud" or placing them in a home safe. I think they both are safe ways to protect the information on those receipts. A small home safe is less work, but you need to come up with a system to regularly purge the paperwork.

I thought I had answered the question.

I don't know what "possible prying eyes" refers to, I addressed it in suggesting that I think most people have needless paranoia and keep too much.

I have heard from various sources that those fire proof safes don't protect anything if you have a house fire. Papers inside turn to ashes.

Linda, safes are rated by how long they can protect contents in a fire. Here is an article about choosing safes.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2011/01/choosing-and-using-a-home-safe/index.htm

Rather than using the tech buzzword and saying "Store the data in the 'cloud'" I prefer to refer to it in a way that more accurately describes it: "Store the data on someone else's computer". Although I'm sure that each company that offers "cloud storage" has passwords and SSL and all that, I think that any data you store with them will be safe -- right up until it isn't. Many companies have been sure their computers and their data is safe only to find out otherwise.

So if any of your data actually is sensitive enough that someone would want to steal it, storing it in "the cloud", in my opinion, doesn't really offer any reliable measure of security. If your goal is merely to have a separate storage location for your data, so that the data would survive a localized catastrophe, "the cloud" is a reasonable solution, but if any real harm could arise from the data being seen by prying eyes with ill-intent, you'll probably never know that your data has been compromised until the harm has occurred.

Yeah, Bob, I do agree with your first paragraph! I'm not sure I have any more confidence in a business's storage of my data than in, say, a nosy visitor (or in my case, relatives!) "just wondering" what I have in the bank! Ill-intent, probably not, tho.

Snidely: I agree I probably keep too much! But every so often, I do shred stuff. There are papers, tho, that must be saved -- like copies of tax forms. It hadn't occurred to me that general utility statements don't need to be held onto and to trust the providers to keep the info on file for a period of time. (Does anybody here keep more than a couple months' worth? And why?)

I don't think I am verging on being paranoid -- except maybe when I flip through my files and see a copy of my credit record document, which has all sorts of details I'd rather other people not see! Maybe the thumb drive is the place for that.

I don't keep bills I've paid, my check register is a good failsafe - chances are excellent if something was overlooked you'll get a past due notice. In my entre life, I have never had to dredge up a cancelled check for proof of payment, etc. I keep copies of my bank statements for one year just out of habit, brokerage statements for one month until the new one comes. Tax returns for seven years - and that might be too many. I do a shredding purge of no longer necessary papers after my taxes are in during April. I don't do any financial transactions (aside from a few recurring bills paid on automatic deduct) on line simply because I'm "old school" that way.

It took me a long time to come to grips with what is important paper/document wise. So much of it is not. What's important to me is no longer drowning in paper.

The list shown in sushipup's link might be useful for some to refer to. Almost everything (tax returns, estate planning docs) can be obtained from the source but could also be kept in pdf digital form on a thumb drive. Be sure to give digital copies to your executor/trustee. Birth and death certs are easily obtainable except for those for whom such events occurred in obscure places. I don't know why any individual would want physical possession of a stock certificate, better to have your broker keep them.

For anything not mentioned of high value, including jewelry of high monetary or sentimental value, the best choice is to use a safe deposit box at a bank. They're free at my bank but even if you have to pay, they're cheap to rent and MUCH safer than anything you'd have at home.

the only time you wish you had docs, is when you're p.o.a. like we are for fil. we had to do Medicaid, and the feds are as dumb as a box of rocks... sent us asking what 2 life ins policies were.... not.... they were files for car and house insurance .....

^ Yes. Going though that, too, as administrator as my DH's estate. We scanned a bunch of stuff back in the '90s, wrote CD's and put labels on them, and the label adhesive apparently reacted with the coating and rendered the CD's unreadable. All 53 CD's. And, yes, the Fed's can be dumber than a box of rocks.

Dealing with other's papers (as in having a financial POA) is a lot tougher than dealing with your own - especially with someone elderly who saved boxes and boxes of everything since the 30's.

I scan all of my info into Evernote. You can either mark out any SSNs prior to scanning or password protect the PDF prior to uploading it if you're concerned about security. I usually just mark out my SSN.

Your Evernote info can be stored locally on your computer or uploaded so you can access it from any other computer or your mobile device. I have my data so I can access it anywhere and make a backup of it every few months to take to my safe deposit box.

I have a ton of stuff on Evernote, most of which probably wouldn't be important to anyone but me. Scans of all my old family photos, my genealogy stuff, old financial records, professional development stuff, etc. There are certain things I still keep hard copies of, but I've managed to purge a bunch of physical files by scanning and uploading them.