I do back up my Money file regularly, and keep multiple backups, having
taken to heart the many tales of woe I have seen in this group.

Susan

"Chris Cowles" <NoSpam[at]For.me> wrote in message
news:eW1JujD8FHA.3876[at]TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"harrelsonesq" <harrelsonesq2[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:OFqBmB$7FHA.472[at]TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
- quote -

You may regret that when your data get corrupted and you have to reconstruct
something. BTDT.
--
Chris Cowles
Gainesville, FL

Since bank statements have only day-to-day expenses such as groceries, gas,
& bill payments on them, I consider them useful only for balancing. I shred
them when the next one shows up & I can confirm it's correct.

Records of deductible expenses, such as credit card statements with charges
for business expenses on them, are a different story. For investment
accounts, I shred the monthly or quarterly statements when I get the annual
statements, which go in the file, although they seem redundant with the
1099's.

By the time the IRS came around, as I understand it, it could be four years
later, you could have switched programs, you have almost certainly switched
computers, & your backups to removable media might have been lost or the
media might have failed, or the current version might not read them, so you
shouldn't assume that your data will be accessible.

The only things I find hard to preserve for posterity are mileage ---
because Money won't track it, and gambling losses -- because paper won't
assign categories. I do mileage in Excel, printed out, & Spending By
Category, printed out, for losses.

Stuff that doesn't generate something like a W-2 or a 1099 is going to be
either entered into software or written down on paper, & you do both of
those yourself, not just the first.

Susan


"Chris Cowles" <NoSpam[at]For.me> wrote in message
news:%233gN2B97FHA.2036[at]TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Laurel" <FakeMail[at]Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23HOWNZ37FHA.3232[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Like Dick, I keep my statements. I file them in an accordion folder with
tax-relevant receipts, one for each tax year. I recycle the folders after a
few years since I'm not likely to be audited after awhile. I know some
people say you should keep your non-taxable account contribution records
forever, but I'm simply not going to keep paper that long.

I keep all the paper copies including tax return stuff and print a Money all
transactions all accounts report once a year besides. It fills about one
copy paper carton every second or third year.

"Laurel" <FakeMail[at]Hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23HOWNZ37FHA.3232[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Do Money users generally also keep copoies of all their bank statements? It
seems redundant. On the web I get conflicting advice, even in the same
article. On the one hand I'm told that software such as Money is acceptable
to the IRS (strange, since you can enter your own transactions). On the
other hand, the advice is to keep electronic copies of all statments.

What do real life users do?