How Long Should You Keep Pay Slips For?

SurreyLass1

Just having a tidy up, and have come across a big bundle of my old brown envelope payslip/cash envelope things from a part time job I did 2005 - 2007 - how long should I be keeping these for? If I dont NEED to keep them, I would rather ditch them, as they are taking up valuable space (not to mention collecting dust!)

Many thanks, as always!

FuzzyCub

I get rid of mine after I get my P60 for that year (I keep the last 3 months until three months into the new tax year incase i have to prove my income).

JCS1

Keep P60's just in case, but the payslips can go if you want.

Ineedaname

I used to keep the whole of the previous year's payslips even after P60 received, but then I've always been a bit more cautious. Think it comes from my dad being a hoarder. After he died we found payslips back 40 years and every rent book for housing association house going back 20 years!

Agree with the others though, keep your P60s and ditch the payslips.

Worcsman

SurreyLass1 wrote: »

Just having a tidy up, and have come across a big bundle of my old brown envelope payslip/cash envelope things from a part time job I did 2005 - 2007 - how long should I be keeping these for? If I dont NEED to keep them, I would rather ditch them, as they are taking up valuable space (not to mention collecting dust!)

Many thanks, as always!

Ive got all of my payslips in folders from september 1985 up till 1996. I stopped collecting them after that when I became a contractor, then I just gave them to my accountant. I'll never thow them away. I like to look back every now and then. Just for silly stuff like... I'm paying more tax now than I earned gross in 1985 and back then the bins were emptied every week. I have a memory like a fish so would never have known that had I chucked them.

Ineedaname

Very true Worcsman and it was fascinating to see that the rent for our house back in 1971 was 7 shillings per week (I think that's right, memory failing me, lol), but it was a ridiculously small amount even by 1992 standards.

It's people like you who provide us with our history so don't change!

I have nobody to pass anything on to so have been gradually ditching everything not important to me and that my friends won't be interested in inheriting, pml.

Worcsman

Ineedaname wrote: »

Very true Worcsman and it was fascinating to see that the rent for our house back in 1971 was 7 shillings per week (I think that's right, memory failing me, lol), but it was a ridiculously small amount even by 1992 standards.

It's people like you who provide us with our history so don't change!

I have nobody to pass anything on to so have been gradually ditching everything not important to me and that my friends won't be interested in inheriting, pml.

Dunno about that, I guess though in a hundred or so years when they are found in an old, dust covered case in a loft, they will be read in disbelief. As a kid I found a letter under the floorboards in our old house. It was dated 1849 and had a two penny blue stamp on it. It was about a boy that drowned whilst bathing in the river severn, poor boy.. Exact words from the letter. I do wish I still had it, I have no idea what became of it.. Hopefully it is in a draw somewhere in the family and will resurface one day. A lot more interesting than binders full of payslips

Ineedaname

That's the very point, it's not what the stuff means in your lifetime, but to generations to come.

I remember the first time I learnt about the Titanic. A primary school teacher had just moved house and ripped up the old carpets. The underlay was an entire paper with the first reports of the sinking, photos of the captain, the Astors & Googenheims etc. He brought the front page into school for us to see and we had a whole afternoon learning about the Titanic, I've been fascinated ever since.