I tend to think that financial, physical, and mental clutter are interconnected. A writer for Simple Dollar ( a financial blog “for the rest of us”) blogged on Unclutterer (organization for all) about this concept in a great entry that I wanted to share with you. “The Connections Between Mental, Physical, and Financial Clutter” preaches how becoming a mindful consumer can limit your spending to more essential purchases.

The first step to becoming a mindful consumer is to practice being mindful in the present. Erin Doland from Unclutterer has a 30-second challenge. Close your eyes and entertain thoughts relevant to everything that is going on around you. Shut out your to-do list, stop thinking about your boyfriend/girlfriend, and don’t let your mind swirl. Are your ideas focused? Are your muscles tense or sore? Is your breathing rapid or deep?

Being mindful of the present, and only the present, can be very difficult. I didn’t make it longer than five minutes, without losing focus on the present. Practice during your everyday activities. Next time you shop, ask yourself, “why do I need this?” Figure out how many hours of work it would take you to pay for the product. You’ll find that when you rationalize your purchases, it’s easier to stay within your budget.

While the article touched on what can be done in the moment to become a mindful consumer, I think that it’s essential to train your mind to evaluate purchases through reflection. If you’re a “math” person, examine your spending history statistically. You can use Shoeboxed’s graphs (found at the bottom of each of your shoeboxes) to analyze how you’ve been spending and evaluate specific purchases. Does your spending have an upward trend? What could you do to curb it? When you shop, try to visualize where your purchase would fall on the graph. Would this purchase continue your upward spending? Would this purchase deviate extremely from your average spending on products of this type?

If you’re more of an “English” person, grab a journal and a pen. Reflect on some of your purchases. You can look over your receipts, to help you remember what you’ve purchased at what cost. Did the purchase live up to your expectations? Did the product last long enough to warrant it’s initial cost? Do you use the product often? If you find that your purchases haven’t lived up to your expectations relative to their cost, research and see if there are cheaper/better alternatives. Next time you shop, compare purchases with those you’ve reflected on. Will the purchase fulfill your needs and expectations?

Reflect and clear your thoughts to rationalize your decisions. Being aware of how you are spending your money, is the first step to curbing unnecessary expenditures.

As you no doubt noticed, Shoeboxed has a sleek new design inside the site. We wanted to make Shoeboxed a little easier on the eyes, and we also changed around the navigation to streamline the receipt organization process. We hope that we can save you some time and frustration by making it easy to navigate and manage your receipts, whether you have 5 or 5,000 in your account.

The main navigation for the application itself is now in the side navigation bar. Many of the navigation elements before were split between the side and the top, and we think by combining them together, we can make it easier to get around.

In the top navigation, there is now more information about the company, including a vision statement and our environmental stance in addition to existing pages like About Us and the Shoeboxed Info Desk, a one-stop destination for FAQs, help, and white papers about relevant topics that we launched last week.

The new tagging system released today is another way to improve the way you manage all their receipts. Information about what shoeboxes a given receipt is in is now available from the My Receipts table, so that it is easier to keep track of what receipt is organized where. This was something that a lot of you asked for, and we are happy to deliver it!

As always, let us know what you think. We are all about you, and want to make the site as useful to you as possible. Email us at help@team.shoeboxed.com with any comments or suggestions!

Also, if you have an account at Digg.com, help us make our story popular here.

David Allen is a widely popular author who preaches the concept of GTD, or Getting Things Done. He is a thought leader in the area of personal productivity, and I’ve been meaning to mention him and his suggestions on the blog for awhile now. For a limited time, we are offering to send you a FREE David Allen book! If you buy a membership to our Receipt Mail-In program for $9, we will send you a free copy of David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done.”

Here are some of the core principles, as noted on his website:

* Capturing anything and everything that has your attention
* Defining actionable things discretely into outcomes and concrete next steps
* Organizing reminders and information in the most streamlined way, in appropriate categories, based on
how and when you need to access them
* Keeping current and “on your game” with appropriately frequent reviews of the six horizons of your
commitments (purpose, vision, goals, areas of focus, projects, and actions)

He also has some interesting things to say about receipts:

If your receipts are all over the place, your filing system is chaotic, and your in-basket is dysfunctional, it just seems like too much work to do to find and organize the tasks at hand.

And

We’ll probably want to claim deductions, but if we do we’ll have to back them up, and that means we’ll need all the receipts. Oh, my God! I don’t know if we really have all the receipts we’d need and what if we didn’t have all the receipts but we claimed the deductions anyway and we got audited? Audited? Oh, no - the IRS’s JAIL!!

Anyway, Shoeboxed is not just about getting your receipts organized and manageable. We’re big supporters of any life hacks out there that can help you get other parts of your life more organized or make you more productive.

And that’s why we have the new offer: If you buy a membership to our Receipt Mail-In program for $9, we will send you a free copy of David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done.”

Update: Oct. 14, 2008 — Offer expired, and dead links removed.

I do lots of different things at Shoeboxed - I guess that’s the nature of working 16-hour days. One of the most entertaining parts of my job, though, is actually using Shoeboxed. We want our user experience to be second-to-none, so we all use Shoeboxed religiously to organize our receipts, and we are all veritable Receipt Mail-In addicts.

Before I started using Shoeboxed, I never did any kind of serious budgeting. Living off my parents, the money coming in always seemed reconcilable with what I was shelling out. I was content just looking at my bank account online to check my balances. But I really wasn’t able to track my spending with any sort of accuracy. Debit card statements are notoriously hard to read because of shortened store names and little reference to what you actually bought.

But then I started using Receipt Mail-In, and with basically no effort, I now know a LOT more about my spending habits. I’m now religious about asking for a receipt from cashiers, and a never forget to keep it in my wallet. I dump it in my Receipt Mail-In envelope as soon as I get back to my desk, and then mail it in whenever I feel like it. (Yes, even though I work about 30 feet from the Receipt Mail-In operation, I use USPS just like everybody else) I have hundreds of receipts in my account, and it was really interesting for me to realize that most all of my receipts are for food. Here is a sneak peak into my personal account:

It really made me step back and realize how much money I could save by eating out less, and eating at less expensive places.

So this morning? I’m eating cereal instead of going out for breakfast at one of the restaurants across the street.

Receipt Mail-In is the first receipt organization service that makes organization into a reasonable task. Sure, a lot of people save receipts, but it it so time consuming to scan the hundreds of receipts required to get the detailed analytics that Mail-In users (like me) are privy to. Aren’t you curious what you will find out about your spending habits with Receipt Mail-In?

Shoeboxed was born to be a receipt organization service. We’re committed to help everybody organize receipts with as little work as possible - everybody from individuals to small businesses to large corporations.

Because we are so committed to this idea, we are revamping our core organizational function on the site. Shoeboxes were originally designed as folders where you could store your receipts. Toward the end of last year, we introduced everyone to the idea that you could itemize your receipts on Shoebox, and organize those individual purchases in Shoeboxes instead of the whole receipt. But we’ve learned that whole receipts are often what people want to group together, so we are going back to our original functionality to keep it simple, and, I think, more useful.

We made this change based off of feedback from our users. Whenever you have a question, comment, or feature suggestion, please drop us a note at help@team.shoeboxed.com, and we’ll be happy to help. We love getting feedback, and are very open to creating exactly the features that you want on Shoeboxed. It’s all about you, baby.

Up until I discovered Shoeboxed, my receipt organization level was a disaster. There were several sources for the problems plaguing me.

Undeniably, some of the blame lies on me. I got a second’s worth of satisfaction when I tossed the receipt from my vanilla chai latte. On the rare occasion that I did save the receipt, it cluttered my wallet, purse, desk or found a long-term/permanent home on my floor.

I tried saving my receipts in a little white box in my closet. My friends, however, kept thinking it was another box of stilettos in my cluttered wardrobe and would open it. Receipts are private; sharing them did not work for me.

When visiting my kid-cousin, I found out that children do not so much share as take EVERYTHING. After one day when my cousin stole my purse and hid every single content in it (oh boy, is hide and seek fun), we filmed this comical reenactment.

The following video exemplifies how difficult it is to keep track of receipts:

On a more serious note, our fast-paced retail environment makes it difficult to hold onto our financial history. To speed up the checkout process, many stores have switched to thermal papers and printers. The downside is that the ink fades rather quickly. Many retailers who use thermal paper receipts, like Target, only guarantee the receipt will last for 90 days.

Despite all the forces preventing people like me from keeping and organizing receipts, it is important. Receipts enable consumers to make returns, claim insurance, and get reimbursed for work. Shoeboxed worked for me, and I hope it works for you too!

I’ve talked quite a bit on the blog about our innovative receipt scanning program, Shoeboxed Mail-In over the last few months, and I’m very excited to announce that we are moving out of our trial period, and are now offering the full service.

All the information you need to know about Mail-In can be found in our Mail-In Info Center.

When you scan in every receipt you ever get, there is some really interesting and useful information that can result. Actually accomplishing the monstrous task of scanning every receipt you have has typically been a challenge in the past. But now, with Shoeboxed Mail-In, you can easily have digital copies of all of your paper receipts.

All your receipts are organized in the same account, and you can organize them by date, totals, store, and any other category that you need. Tracking your spending through receipts gives you a complete overview of what you have been spending you money on, so you can track your spending habits. Several blogs have called us the”Netflix for Receipts.”

Sign up today for as little as $19.95 a month. This is hands-down the best deal around for organizing receipts, and it’s the only service where you don’t have to do any of the scanning yourself!

Sign up today!

Well I can’t believe it. 2007 is almost in the books, and we’re coming up on a whole new year.

I know people get really excited about New Years, but I don’t really buy into it all that much personally. Yeah, I’ll probably run every other day for the first couple of weeks trying to get back in shape, but I know that will probably fade away. Why? Well, mostly because I hate working out, but that’s neither here nor there. If working out were suddenly made effortless and entertaining, then I would probably do it.

What’s most frustrating about New Years resolutions is how hard it is to maintain them. I’d love to write a blog entry that rallies the masses to finally rummage through their house, find all their receipts and get them organized on January 1st, and them have them keep that organization up every day throughout the whole year. But I don’t give myself that much credit. I’m no motivational speaker, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change your unorganized ways.

Shoeboxed makes it unbelievably simple to organize your receipts. And as we all know, the easier it is, the more likely we all are to keep up the organization. Shoeboxed Mail-In is probably the best thing to come around for people that can’t keep organized since the file cabinet, and we hope you sign up for it in 2008.

Mail us your receipts, we scan them in and upload them to your account, and then send them back to you. There’s really no work on your end, and you have digital copies of all your receipts. There’s never been a better way! If nothing else, it’s a great way to organize receipts from the holidays.

Have a great 2008, and know that you can enter the new year with the realistic goal of getting organized!

We sent this news out in an e-mail last week, but I just wanted to note it here as well: Shoeboxed Mail-In has officially been launched. It works like this:

1. You receive a manila envelope from us with directions and an pre-paid, addressed envelope to send back.
2. You fill the return envelope with as many receipts as you like, and you send it back to us.
3. We scan in your receipts and enter in all the relevant data for you into your account, and then send your receipts back to you.
4. We let you know when your receipts have been scanned in and are available online.

The project is well under way, but due to the outrageous number of people that asked to be a part of the free introductory service, we had to limit the number of people that could be on it. Why? Because, well, startups are lean, mean frugality machines and we’d go out of business if we gave out free stuff to EVERYONE who wanted it. But we do want to thank everyone who e-mailed us in the last few days. the support has been amazing, and we can’t wait to work with you all in the coming months!

In the future, this service will have a small fee attached to it, but we wanted to work out some of the inevitable kinks in the logistics of sending out that many mailings and scanning that many receipts.

We’ve been excited about this project for a while now, but have been really re-energized by the overwhelming positive response to the announcement.

Believe it or not, we don’t like receipts very much. We think they’re annoying, a waste, and difficult to keep track of. Our greatest motivation in developing Shoeboxed is to make it easier for people to organize and manage receipts, because after all, they contain lots of information worth keeping around.

I came across a website the other day that made a strong case for the existence of a site such as Shoeboxed. Mark A. Thomas of New York has decided to put most of his receipts from the past few years on the Internet. The site allows any visitor to access Thomas’ receipts in high quality resolution.

Although the idea of saving receipts online, as Thomas has, may seem appealing because it frees up your filing cabinets (or actual shoeboxes) and other storage space at home, the security and organization are lacking with Thomas’ method. With Shoeboxed, Thomas would be able to establish different Shoeboxes to better organize his receipts, thus making it easier to track down travel receipts from food purchases, for example. At the same time, with a personal and secure account, Thomas would not have to put all his receipts on display to everyone. With Shoeboxed you now have the option to keep your receipts online like Mr. Thomas wanted to in a secure and organized manner. Let’s also not forget that putting your paper receipts online allows you to recycle your receipts, an extra plus and step towards keeping a sustainable society model.

Shoeboxed can work for him and it can work for you! Sign up for free today!

There has been a decent amount of chatter recently about the security of financial applications on the Internet. Lots of people are scared to tell a company that they don’t know what all their financial information is. We totally get that. I’m not comfortable with it either.

But I still track my online and offline spending at Shoeboxed, and it’s because I don’t have to tell anyone my personal financial data, AND I can still get all of it organized. How?

The Federal Trade Commission requires that businesses cannot print or electronically send receipts with more than the last 5 digits of a credit card number or any information regarding the expiration date. Limiting this information makes the receipt untraceable back to the credit card number and associated sensitive data. Credit card numbers and expiration dates are common targets for identity thieves and scammers, so it makes sense for businesses to exclude that information on their receipts to protect their customers.

This is important to remember when signing up for and using Shoeboxed. Many people are worried about storing financial information like credit card and bank account numbers online, but with Shoeboxed, the receipts you organize have none of that information. Nothing that you upload or send to your account would be personally identifiable, and this makes your data much more secure.

This makes Shoeboxed unique from most every other financial application on the Internet. You can get control of your finances and organize receipts with just as much ease on Shoeboxed as any other site, but with Shoeboxed, we never ask for all that sensitive data.

Here at Shoeboxed we have become quite passionate about receipts. We think they are awesome. In fact, we are quite sure the man who invented them is severely under-appreciated, whoever he was.

Receipts are the diary of the lazy. If you won’t tell a story, your receipts will do it for you. Your receipt of Bed Bath & Beyond a week before your first year in college says you were excited and anxious and completely delusional about the size of your dorm room. Your receipt for a new wardrobe says you were ready to take on the big city and look good while doing it. Your receipt for a tub of Chunky Monkey ice cream, two bottles of hair color, and bubble bath salts remind you of a particularly bad break-up.

Because we know receipts are more than just pieces of paper that litter the streets  (which reminds us, please recycle), Shoeboxed is happy to introduce our paper Receipt Uploader. Now all receipts, paper and digital, big and small, can be treated as equals.

Your e-mail receipts will come to Shoeboxed in exactly the same way. Nothing has changed about the old way Shoeboxed worked. Just give online stores your “@shoeboxed.com” e-mail address whenever you buy something online or sign up for a mailing list. Receipts and e-mails will come directly to your Shoeboxed account.

But now all those receipts lying around your home and stuffing your purse can now join the party, too. Just scan in or take a digital picture of your receipts. Then use the Receipt Uploader to put them directly onto the list you already have going on your My Receipts page.

We don’t think there’s a better way to get your purchase history in one place. It’s never been easier, and there are lots of new features coming along in the near future that we think are pretty awesome, so keep an eye out!

When my youngest sister, Cat, applied to college, she defied any stereotype that teenagers are disorganized. Each college she was considering was awarded its own binder. Each admissions topic (academics, athletics, extracurriculars) was coded with a particular color. Each criteria was measured on the rubric she developed. Finally, a list of pros and cons was attached to the front of the binder along with a checklist of the items necessary for application. By the time she received her acceptance letters, we already knew she would be joining the student athletes at Kenyon College in Ohio.

My sister was the first person to sign up for shoeboxed.com.

The day after the site launched, Cat asked me if she could put her linens and dorm accessories in Shoeboxed (the answer is yes, of course!). She and her roommate, an academic all-American lacrosse player, decided who would bring which electronics. She chose a laptop online that will also be in her Shoeboxed account. At the end of her back-to-school shopping spree, she will have all her expenses in one place. My parents are happy.

She also managed to keep her school e-mail free from anything that is not school related.

Now, I wish I was as organized as Cat. When I applied to college, I ended up turning my applications in the day they were due. When I arrived at Duke, I found my roommate had already brought a TV so mine had to be stored in my minuscule closet. My linens were too small for my bed. My financial information was… not organized.

I have also signed up for Shoeboxed. If I didn’t, my boss would be upset. But more importantly, I would really not have a chance at online organization. My inbox sans Shoeboxed looks like a “Where is Waldo?” book.

So Cat signed up because Shoeboxed keeps her organized. I signed up because it’s automatic so I don’t have to be organized.

What’s your reason?

One of the biggest benefits of organizing your receipts is for reimbursement purposes. Everybody has been reimbursed at some time or another, and everybody knows the rule: you’ve got to have your receipt. Despite this, it can be a pain to keep track of everything you bought. Most of us have had to “eat” an expense that should have been paid for by someone else because we couldn’t find the receipt for it.

So how can Shoeboxed help? Well, first off, everything that you buy online will be in an easy-to-read, tabular format. And they’re not going anywhere either. You will always have easy access to everything you’ve bought online.

Also, you can easily forward any of your receipts to anyone at any time. Need to send a receipt to your boss for that fax machine you ordered for the office? No problem. Just click on the receipt from the My Receipts page. Then click “Forward this receipt.” Enter your boss’ e-mail address, and you’re done. Expect your check in the mail in 4-6 weeks.

Save money, save time, save frustration, get on Shoeboxed.

Have you used your Shoeboxed account in a really creative way? Do you feel uncomfortable with all the free time you have now that you’re Shoeboxing? Tell us about it! Send us an e-mail at help(at)team(dot)shoeboxed(dot)com.

You already know that Shoeboxed helps you keep your online receipts organized and your e-mail inbox free from the annoying clutter of spam and advertisements. But as I have learned over the years, there is actually more to life than just the Internet. For this reason, I made a list of a few easy habits that can help you stay organized in all aspects of life.

1. Reduce before you organize. One of the main reasons that people get unorganized is that they just have too much stuff. Since it is much easier to organize 10 things than 100, it’s a good idea to toss out all the items that you don’t need before you start actually organizing. Recycle papers when you can’t remember what they refer to, give old clothes to charity when they don’t fit any longer, and then start organizing that desk or closet.
2. Everything in its right place. Assign specific places for everything, and then make sure to always return items to those places. It’ll be a lot easier to find your sunglasses if you always put them in their “home” rather than just tossing them onto the table somewhere.
3. Take care of things now. Small messes are easier to manage than large ones, so get rid of the “I’ll do it later” mentality and start putting things away right when you’re done with them. That way they won’t build up and leave you with an unmanageable mess on your hands.
4. Write it down. I have personally perfected the talent of forgetting very important pieces of information until just after they are useful, at which point they miraculously come back. To keep this from happening to you, I recommend keeping a calendar or notepad with you and writing down important events as they arise. It is also not a bad idea to periodically go through your notebook and prioritize the things you have written down so you do not get bogged down by unnecessary tasks.
5. Make a system. It is not enough to just clean everything up once—clutter always has a way of coming back. Make a system to stay ahead of the mess. Have a cleaning schedule where you do a little bit every day, have a set method for approaching your paperwork, and put your kids to work. Okay, that last one may not be serious, but it doesn’t hurt to have kids learn the basics of staying organized at a young age.