How to Organize Bank Statements

Many people are staying barely ahead of the mounting piles of bank statements that they receive each month. It is amazing how quickly they pile up and how much space they take up. Use some of the following suggestions to apply to your situation to help with organizing your bank statements.

Gather all the bank statements that you have from every drawer, file cabinet, shopping bag and shoe box. Bank statements that are more than 7 years old do not need to be kept unless you have a specific reason for keeping them.

Sort the various statements according to the accounts. If you have three checking accounts and two savings accounts, you have five separate bank statements that you receive each month. Make a stack for each separate account.

Go through and open each bank statement. Put the pages of each statement in order. If there are any unnecessary pages, pages without any account information or blank pages, throw those away. Also, throw the envelopes away. Staple the compiled statements together.

Decide what storage area or organizational method will work best for your situation. If you want to keep your bank statements in a file cabinet, then set up a file for each year for each bank account. Place the bank statements in the file folder in date order with the most current being the first in the file when you open it. Do the same for each account. Some may prefer to keep their bank statements in binders. Label the spine of the binder with the name of the account, account number and year. If your bank statements do not already have three holes punched in, you will have to use a hole punch to do it yourself.

Keep bank statements for 5 to 7 years depending upon your personal choice and how much storage space you want to devote to storing the bank statements. After you have accumulated 5 to 7 years of statements, when starting a new year, throw out the oldest year of bank statements. Be sure to shred your bank statements that you are discarding.