That said, it can be hard to determine how long to keep paycheck stubs. While it is good to have thorough financial records, it's also important to be able to reduce clutter by getting rid of documents you no longer need. Most people would agree that there is no need in the year to have your paystubs from But what about from , or ? Here's our advice on when it's okay to part with your paystubs.
With the help of technology, it can be easy to store paycheck stubs while taking up little to no physical space in your home. Affordable, cloud-based storage solutions allow users to store large amounts of information. This way, you can store a ton of data without making your computer run slowly. With the ability to scan documents and upload them to Dropbox or Google Drive, you could potentially hold on to your paystubs forever. While digital storage can make it easy to hold on to financial documents longer, there will still come a point where you'll want to delete files, or you'll get tired of scanning.
This is when it can be helpful to know which financial documents you actually need to keep forever. This list is fairly short and includes:. Apart from these documents, there is a safe time at which you can part with most other financial records. While paycheck stubs are important for verifying proof of income , they're not one of the financial documents you need to hold onto permanently. But are you wondering, how long should you keep pay stubs? However, holding onto all your pay stubs can end up in a ridiculous situation where you have boxes and boxes of them in your home.
They also allow you to keep good records of your salary. Paper pay stubs may be hard to keep track of—plus, they take up room. Make an effort to keep things like mortgage statements, previous tax returns, any receipts you have for big purchases, and more. Get into the habit of keeping financial records organized. You never know when you might need to access them. After one year, feel free to discard of your physical pay stubs.
At that point, they usually won't be of much use to you or your accountant. Just make sure you take the necessary steps to get rid of your pay stubs properly. If you have a shredder in your home, use it to shred your pay stubs so that people won't be able to get access to your personal information.
If you don't have a shredder, take your pay stubs to a business that supplies shredding services. Your city or town might even offer free shredding to residents at certain times of the year. This will cut down on the clutter you have in your home while also ensuring that you don't have to deal with identity theft later.
Would you feel better holding on to your pay stubs for longer than a year rather than throwing them out? It's not usually necessary to keep pay stubs around that long. But if you really want to do it, make digital copies of your pay stubs that you can keep on your computer or on a hard drive. Digital copies of pay stubs will take up no space at all while allowing you to access them whenever you want.
Many employers are even giving their employees the option of receiving digital pay stubs from the beginning as opposed to hard copies that they have to store. You never want to throw out your pay stubs as soon as you receive them. And enjoy the catharsis.
No one's perfect. In the likely case that you haven't stored your pay stubs in a fire-proof, industrial-strength, password-protected, iris-scanning safe for the past six years, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to track down copies of old stubs that aren't in your possession.
This need might pop up if you live in a state with no legal pay stub requirements, or when you have to provide proof of income or employment, such as when applying for a loan, applying for benefits or buying a new car or home.
This is where your current employer or previous employer can finally come in handy. Don't just call their hotline. To track down old pay stubs, you'll want to get in touch with the human resources department as soon as possible, as it may take a few weeks to get copies of the documents.
Have your Social Security number, dates of applicable employment and employee I. If pay stubs aren't available, ask the HR department for an employer-signed letter printed on company letterhead that verifies your year-to-date earnings, or total earnings during your time with the company. A variety of websites offer the ability to generate your pay stub for free or for a nominal fee by merely entering your basic identifying information, pay rate, pay period, exemptions, deductions, rate and so forth.
Tempting as they may be to use, be wary of these self-generated pay stubs. Often, lenders will not consider them valid proof of income and, as of , the IRS has not issued a stance on these types of documents.
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