Financial Documents

Saving your financial documents is crucial for success as an adult. As a general rule, all financial documents should be saved for 3 years. This is to protect you from the IRS if you get audited; saving all of your documents means that you will have easy access to all of the papers they require you to submit. Here is a basic list of documents you should be saving:

  1. Pay stubs
  2. Bank account statements and paperwork
  3. W2 and 1099 forms
  4. Tax returns
  5. Credit card statements and paperwork
  6. Investment account information

Beyond that, if something looks important, it probably is! It is better to save too many papers than to not have them when you need them. Personally, I store my important documents in an expanable file organized by catagory. If you're more of a digital person, feel free to scan your documents in and organize them on the cloud.