How long should you hang on to old payslips/Bank statements?

[SuperDanX]

Have a box full of this crap, statements and payslips from years ago. Surely I don't need to keep them all? Advice?

[NW2013]

12 months max I'd say. My work has just changed to electronic pay slips.

[Number45]

12 years, if my wife is anything to go by...

[SuperDanX]

Lol, cheers guys.

[marcus]

I used to keep all of mine, the only time Id ever needed them was to get a mortgage and I think they wanted 6 months worth. Id say chuck anything over a year if you really want to keep some, or you could scan them and store them electronically instead.

[toythatkills]

Forever.

(That looked funnier in all-caps)

[Dennoman]

We have a seperate administration with 25 years' worth of the most important bank transfers. Shouldn't take up too much room and it feels good to know you're always covered.

[Giga_Death]

If one day you wanna get your money back from bank charges you will need them, although you usually just get a subject access request from the bank. Only thing I can think of really.

[dataDave]

I whizz mine straight away.

The only time I've needed them is for when I've bought something large on credit like a car or a house. I certainly won't be doing either of those again anytime soon.

[Colin]

A few years back I worked in Norway for 8 months. I was working for a Norwegian company, through a UK agency. As it turned out, the agency had made a total mess of all the tax payments etc, which the revenues both here and in Norway came gunning for me over incorrect payment. If it hadn't been for the fact i'd kept all the payslips from that period as proof of what i'd actually paid out from my earnings, i'd have been royally shafted. So i'm personally for keeping stuff, you never know when it will come in handy.

[gunrock]

If you do your own tax return, then 7 years is required by UK tax law. If not 3 years would be a good length of time, I'd say.