I scan all my receipts every couple of days and dump them in Evernote.
Then I simply run down all my transactions on the CC bill once a month and search Evernote for the dollar amount. So if my CC bill says I spent 40.65 at Walmart, I type in 40.65 into Evernote, and sure enough, there's the receipt.
I save about $70 a year doing this and it takes all of about five minutes a month.
Seriously? I check all my credit card statements pretty carefully and the only errors I ever found were two double charges in the past 10+ years. I just don't believe errors are that common.
For me (although I don't do this) it's matter of principle. For example, companies that send me spam catch a nerve.
Here's my thing with spam: it's cheap or, in the eyes of most PHBs, free. When you send me a spam, what you're saying to me as a potential customer is "You're not valuable enough for me to take 30 seconds and pick up a phone to call you. Instead, I'm going to monopolize a few seconds of your time every day so that you have to see my name while you're deleting things from your inbox."
It's incredibly rude, incredibly disrespectful, and it really ticks me off. So if a company that I do business with adds me to their "waste this person's time" list, I'll take a few minutes to send an email to my rep asking for them to explain why they value me so little.
Is this a waste of 5 minutes? Would it be easier to just write a spamassassin rule to filter this stuff out?
Yeah, probably, but it makes me feel good; it's the principle of it.
I remember reading about replying to all offers that have business reply mail, and putting heavy things (like strips of lead) in the envelope so they would have to pay the postage charge - but still wouldn't get your information.
I love the idea, but am not willing to take the time. If there were some (legal) way to guarantee this would happen on a massive scale I'd be game.
Then I simply run down all my transactions on the CC bill once a month and search Evernote for the dollar amount. So if my CC bill says I spent 40.65 at Walmart, I type in 40.65 into Evernote, and sure enough, there's the receipt.
I save about $70 a year doing this and it takes all of about five minutes a month.