Why I Prefer Getting Bills and Statements on Paper

I'm the money nerd in our marriage. I track expenses with budgeting software, I set up autopay, I go online and move funds around as needed, etc.

But the bills and statements I've preferred to get via paper, even though the various companies keep nagging me to switch to paperless.

“It’s convenient!” Not really. Not when I’d have to log into 20 different company websites, navigate their various paths (some of them cumbersome), to find the bills and statements.

“Available online!” But only for one year, then they delete them. Not good for documentation that I have to keep longer for retention purposes, such as supporting tax documents.

“Go Green!” Sort of. Paper, once printed on, requires no additional energy to store and access. Paperless requires hard drives and more electricity to store and access. Plus, paper is a more reliable long-term storage medium for consumers than their laptop’s hard drive. Or a defunct cloud backup.

I will admit I do have to make sure I don’t lose bills in the clutter and forget to pay.

Paperless handling also requires diligence to make sure bills are paid. I get a few bills and statements via paperless. Electronic copies are nice, such as emailing a copy of a bank statement to my CPA.

I am a techie nerd. I use a password manager to maintain the login credentials for each site.

I keep notes on how to navigate cumbersome sites. I have a folder structure set up on my computer where I store the downloaded PDF files. I have a file-naming convention. (Companies rarely use a useful filename when you download. The filename, download.pdf, is common.) I save it in the right folder so I can find it later. The files are backed up automatically with a cloud backup. And I go through that most every month.

Like I said, I’m a techie nerd. But that’s a lot of work to go through to download, manage, store, and backup my paperless bills and statements. Very few paperless customers go through all that work.