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Keeping Paid-Bill Receipts For Years

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Dinger2 | 00:08 Thu 13th Dec 2012 | Business & Finance
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I'm the kind of cautious person who afetr paying a gas,electric or phone-bill,then files it away in order for years and years (average 3-5yrs) just in case one day a utility company may contact me and say you didn't pay us for a certain quarter 3yrs ago (mistrustful me) so then I could produce it and say "Oh yes I have!" I'm just thinking maybe I don't have to keep them nowhere near that long ? Opinions please.
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I keep a bill until the next one comes in and then I throw it away. I keep bank statements for 1 year.
7 years in my case...exposure on the taxman.
As recent utility bills can be used for the purposes of identity theft I read them, check them, double check them and then immediately shred them.

However retaining some receipts is definitely worth while. When the Woolwich Building Society sent me a 'notice of intention to repossess', because I'd not been making any mortgage payments, I found it rather useful to be able to produce my receipt for the payment of over £35k which I'd made a few months earlier so as to pay the mortgage off!
A further point:
Many (most?) people don't even get paper utility bills any longer; most billing is done entirely online.
I have an online account with TV, Phone, Mobile and all Utilities so no paper bills.
I used to have boxes of them. I get emailed bills now, I could print and file if I wanted but I simply save them to a named folder.

Other than that I do save receipts for bigger payments but only for a month or two.
I shred the phone bill as soon as its paid, but I keep the electricity bills for a year or so because I like to look back to see if the payments match the useage over the year. But I do have a good clear out when the folder is difficult to close.

Mr M shreds everything. Sometimes he tells me about a letter he's had from the pension dept or the hospital but having deemed it a load of old rubbish, its shredded before I'm home from work! One thing we're not between us and that's hoarders.
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Why not scan the bills into a computer and then shred the originals.
My Mortgage Statements from 1998 have come in very hand with my PPI Claim Dinger.
Mortgage
I keep them for a year. Bank statements on-line now. I keep anything to do with income tax (the file looks like forever, but certainly for 7 years).
Utility bills, until the next one arrives'
Mortgage statements, got the lot.
Other bills 12/18 months.

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