Need an afternoon pick-me-up? Make sure to bring your morning receipt.

Starbucks, one of the most popular stores on Shoeboxed, launched a nationwide promotion whereby you can get $2 off an afternoon iced coffee if you bring in a receipt from earlier in the morning. This can mean significant savings, as an iced latte can run over $4.

I love promotions, but I especially love promotions that involve receipts! Hurry though; this receipt-related coffee offer is only available through September 2.

From CNN:

The move to expand the afternoon iced drinks promotion comes after Starbucks said last week it would offer more “value” in its fall and holiday offerings. In a conference call with investors, Chief Executive Howard Schultz said the company may offer deals to consumers who use Starbucks customer cards.

Starbucks has already been testing a variety of regional promotions this summer. In some cities, it has offered discounted drinks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. In July, the chain also gave away 12-ounce iced coffees on Wednesdays to customers in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and Detroit who turned over an “iced brewed coffee card,” a reusable voucher distributed in stores and newspaper inserts.

There are a lot different ways to keep a budget. Using receipt software might not always be the first thing that people think of when they start to get serious about better budgeting, but it can be a powerful tool to help you see where your money is going. Receipts have the original line-item data about what exactly you purchase, and can easily tell you exactly what you have been spending your money on.

In the past, it has been difficult to budget by organizing receipts. Free receipt scanning software like Shoeboxed can really help, though. You can organized, categorize, and export all your receipts easily in one place. Statistics are automatically generated about your receipts and your spending habits, which can help you in your budgeting.

Along with the receipt software on Shoeboxed.com, you can sign up for Receipt Mail-In, which makes it easier to keep track of every single receipt that you have. All those pesky paper receipts can be organized in your Shoeboxed account. By making it easy to get all your receipts in one place, Receipt Mail-In is a great budgeting tool and a great addition to the free receipt scanning software portion of Shoeboxed.com.

Did you know that commercial airlines will reimburse you for lost luggage? In many cases, they’ll need you to show them receipts for what you had in the bag. How are you going to have all those random receipts handy for such a situation? Receipt Mail-In obviously.

It seems that anyone who’s flown on a commercial airline has a lost luggage horror story. I’ve had a couple of problems with my luggage not meeting me here when I land in Raleigh-Durham, but for the most part I think I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve spent four out of the last five summers abroad, and I’ve never lost a bag on one of those trips.

If I were to lose my bag now though, I’d be able to get reimbursed for anything that was in the bag, just by showing my receipts to the airline. I have them all archived and organized on Shoeboxed through our scanning service, Receipt Mail-In.

Linda Burbank wrote a really helpful column in USA Today about this issue, and offers up some good info:

Airlines provide partial reimbursement for interim expenses when luggage is delayed or lost. Usually, reimbursement is capped, often at about $25 a day. United reimburses up to 50% of costs for replacement clothing and toiletries, provided passengers submit receipts. But no airline pays damages based on the inconvenience of not having your luggage.

United reviewed Gavend’s claim and agreed to make an exception to its policy. It sent her a check for $874, the amount for which the family still had receipts.

You never know when those receipts are going to come in handy. Having a complete scanned archive of your receipts is the only way to avoid these kinds of situations.

The old statistics page that we had on the site had so much potential. It was a tool that could tell you where your money was going without really spending any of your time crunching the numbers in Excel. Or at least that’s what we wanted it to be. We’ve been thinking about how to make that page more useful for you, and we’re rolling out a new My Stats page today.

It’ prettier, it’s more in depth, and it’s a lot more useful. You can now track lots of different things on that page. You can identify trends in your spending, like where your money is going, and how that distribution changes over time. When you are digitizing all your receipts in Shoeboxed, some very interesting information surfaces. Here are some examples from my personal account:

My total spending over time

You can see the spike where I bought my computer. Otherwise, I stay pretty cheap… until recently.

The breakdown of my spending by shoebox

Most of my money is from food, which I guess makes sense, but I had never really thought about it before Shoeboxed told me. Also, that computer comes back with a blue vengeance.

The ratio of email to paper receipts I have

I buy a lot of things online, even though I get a fair amount in through Receipt Mail-In. I had a lot of email receipts sitting in my old personal email inbox and I forwarded them all over to my Shoeboxed account, which helps build up that number.

My spending by shoebox over time

You can see how the breakdown of your spending changes over time with this graph. You can pick and choose which shoeboxes you want to appear on the graph too, so you can easily compare whichever shoeboxes you want.

Be sure to check out how your own spending statistics look! You may learn something about where your money goes. If you have any other suggestions for analytics that you would like to have in your account, let us know. We are happy to work on any tool that you think you would find useful.

The great thing about this page is that all the graphs are automatically generated. Just using your Shoeboxed account normally, your graphs should take on lives of their own. Not only are you scanning and storing your receipts at Shoeboxed, but Shoeboxed is actually putting those receipts to work for you.

Let’s get started!

If you own a small or home business, you know how hard it can be to make your business into a success and maintain it over the long haul. One of the most frustrating parts of running your own business is the administrative paper work that you have to do.

Well, we’ve always known that Shoeboxed can help small businesses a lot. We can get those receipts lying on your desk into a clean and organized format, and you don’t have to do any of the work.

While you are playing with paper at your desk, the competition is eating your lunch…. and we can help. Sign up for a Small Business Account through our Receipt Mail-In program, and you’ll be able to outsource all that paper clutter so you can focus on more important stuff: like growing your business and boosting profits.

Just sign up for Receipt Mail-In Classic or Receipt Mail-In Express and enter the coupon code SMALLBUSINESS and you’re on your way to getting rid of receipt clutter and getting premium customer service from us.

Any questions? Give us a call at (888) 369-4269.

Anyway, I’m really excited about it. Even more excited about this than about all the buzz around David Cook and Kimberly Caldwell.

Craig Reber wrote a great story in the Dubuque Telegraph Herald that just makes me want to use Shoeboxed even more. Of course, I am a Receipt Mail-In user so I manage to get pretty much all of my receipts scanned into my Shoeboxed account online. But I usually just use Shoeboxed as a way to keep track of my personal budgeting.

Craig points out some interesting facts in his article that really highlight why Shoeboxed can be good for insurance reasons as well.

“You should have a list of all of your property that you consider valuable,” said Cpl. Dan Sabers, of the Dubuque Police Department.

Dubuque police officers routinely locate property that they can’t return to the owner because of a lack of identifiable documentation: name, model, serial number and any other identifiable markings. Sabers emphasizes the importance of documenting valuable items, whether it’s a bicycle, a power tool or big-screen television. And it’s a lot easier to document possessions before suffering a loss from a burglary, fire, tornado or other disaster. It’s as easy as making a list in a notebook and saving sales receipts.

Sabers estimates that only about 5 percent to 10 percent of the population documents valuable possessions.

Along with written information, the Insurance Information Institute recommends that people consider adding photographs of their possessions, which can be done easily with a digital camera. Those with film cameras can scan print photos or have their film developer save the images to a disk. You can store the print photos with a copy of your inventory.

Well, funny story. Shoeboxed lets you do all of this. It’s a great tool to keep your receipts so you can prove you own something that was lost or damaged. Shoeboxed also allows you to add photos of items that you own. Just upload the receipt, and then you can attach items to them and add photos and notes. Never lose out on getting compensated if your belongings are stolen or damaged!

Shoeboxed is excited to announce its official Earth Day initiative. As you all know, we strive to be a green company, and have made tremendous efforts in the past few weeks in and out of the office to build on our already strong commitment to earth-friendliness.

Our latest development is a receipt recycling drive starting on Earth Day, this upcoming Tuesday April 22nd. Shoeboxed invites all businesses and individuals to submit paper receipts to us through April 29th. All the receipts we receive will eventually be transported by foot, bike, scooter, or Toyota Prius to the local recycling plant.

If you help us achieve our goal to recycle a tree’s worth of receipts (58 kilograms), we’ll even scan all receipts and load them into your free Shoeboxed account for you before recycling them. That’s a pretty sweet deal, as this service usually costs $19.95 per month.

When you are sending in your receipts, make sure to include your name, email address, and phone number in an envelope with your receipts.

For more information about the impact that paper receipts have on our environment and some more details about Shoeboxed’s Earth Day celebrations, check out our Shoeboxed Earth Day page.

Digitize receipts. Save the Earth. Shoebox everyday.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that they think this year’s cold and flu season is the worst in a long while. People seem to be getting sick all over the place, and many are looking for a quick fix that can get them back healthy as soon as possible.

One of the most popular products for alleviating symptoms of cold and flu is Airborne, an effervescent product invented by a grade school teacher. Lots of my friends (and some other Shoeboxers) swear by it, and start taking it right when they start getting sick, as per the directions.

Well, as we all know, the cold and flu are tough beasts to handle, and some question the effectiveness of Airborne. A few of these people filed a class-action law suit against the company. Airborne agreed to pay $23.3 million to settle the case.

So why am I talking about this on the Shoeblog? Well, as it turns out, Airborne is offering refunds for any Airborne that customers have ever bought… if you have a receipt. Shoeboxed users rejoice! All those receipts you’ve been saving may come in handy! This is just a friendly reminder of the usefulness that comes with having all your receipts at your fingertips. So remember to scan and save your receipts just in case you need them for refunds, returns, or exchanges. You never know when they are going to come in handy.

My dad is famous in our family for being able to return anything to a store, no matter whether he has a receipt or not, whether the product was used or not, and with total disregard for company return policies. We’re not really sure how he manages to do it. For the rest of us who aren’t lawyers by training, returning something without the receipt can be a huge annoyance. There’s really no reason that companies should require receipts for returns anymore. Come on, people. We’re living in the 21st Century; there has to be a better way to prove that you bought something.

Just to prove what we already know, here is part of Best Buy’s return policy:

Your original receipt is required for all returns, exchanges, price matches and warranty repair services.

But Best Buy, one of the most popular technology retailers in the country, probably has pretty sophisticated sales tracking systems, right? Their cash registers are actually pretty powerful computers, and they’re connected to the Internet. Wikipedia explains the industry standard for cash registers these days:

Today, these machines… record the transaction in detail including each item purchased, record the method of payment, keep totals for each product or type of product sold as well as total sales for specified periods, and do other tasks as well.

Currently, many cash registers… may be accessed remotely for the purpose of obtaining records or troubleshooting.

So if Best Buy is tracking your purchase, the price and the method of payment, why shouldn’t you have the option of returning something just with your driver’s license and credit/debit card. If I go up the register and say, “Hi, my name is Dan Englander and I bought some Boss headphones last week. In fact, here they are in their original packaging. Anyway, I’d like to return them,” then I should be able to return them! I am logged in their system! The paper receipt is totally unnecessary.

At Shoeboxed we are revolutionizing the way you organize your receipts, but it’s part of a bigger consumer revolution. We want you to have more control over retailers and be able to make the shopping experience more about YOU. Updates to come.

Filling out expense reports can be a costly hassle. Business travelers have to track and convert expenses to get reimbursed. There are many methods of dealing with the annoyance we all call expense reports: costly executive assistants, time-consuming Excel expense log-sheets, expensive scanners, and, of course, Shoeboxed Receipt Mail-In. But only one of these options is both cheap and easy.

For a year, Shoeboxed will scan your receipts for $19.95/month, leaving you with basically no work to do. To see how much you’ll save, Shoeboxed provides a Receipt Mail-In savings calculator. It lets you value your time per hour, specify how many receipts you get per month, and how much you might spend on a receipt scanner. It calculates how much time and money you save with Shoeboxed Receipt Mail-In.

One great thing about Mail-In is that it’s so simple. Put receipts in the envelope, seal, and send. You will have easy-to-use access to all of your expenditures in your Shoeboxed account. When expense report time comes around, you will be prepared to deal with it!

Who said expense reports couldn’t be cheap and easy?

Sign up today to get started!

Deals, deals, deals. As of yesterday, they are officially all over the place. And they’ll be everywhere throughout the holiday season shopping rush. Whether you go out with the family to your local mall and spend the entire day there, or if you decide to stay at home and take advantage of the many online store deals, it’s a pretty fun time of year.

Use your Shoeboxed email address to buy online and scan or upload images of the paper receipts you get in stores this season. Not only will all your receipts be quickly organized, but you will also be able to share your newest acquisitions with other shoppers looking for inspiration.

Here are a few tips for a great holiday shopping season:

1. Check online deals. People too often overlook the deals made available by online stores and just head off to the mall. Be sure to go online and search for items you are interested in buying. You may find some very attractive deals.

2. If you go out to shop, check store opening times and try to go as early as possible to be sure that you will get the items you want at the price they were advertised for. The great deals usually run out quickly on Black Friday, but it’s also true for the rest of the holiday season at many stores.

3. Check the newspaper! Some great deals are revealed only in the newspaper, can be missed if you’re not looking.

4. Solicit the help of friends! Getting a recommendation from another shopper is invaluable. Sift through all the ads, and actually get want you want this shopping season.

5. Check out our favorite stores here to get a glimpse into the wackiest, most useful, and most entertaining stores on the web.

This week is one of the most exciting times of the year for shopping. Unfortunately, it can also be a very disorganized and frantic time. Make sure you shop online with your Shoeboxed email address and organize all your receipts on your free Shoeboxed account!

We have a lot of new features on Shoeboxed as of last Friday, but there’s only one that gives you free stuff.

After you’re done exploring how our receipt organization is improved, and how you can organize, share, and stereotype specific things you and other people have bought to get those receipts, and then after you’re done recovering from how awesome our makeover is, there’s something else you should check out…

And when you use this feature, we’ll send you a free Shoeboxed t-shirt. Yes!

This fall’s hottest fashion is available to you with a couple clicks of the mouse. Once you login, there’s a link in the top right of your overview page. Click it, and it’s super easy to invite all of your e-mail contacts. We’re compatible with Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! and several other popular e-mail clients. We want everyone you know to know about Shoeboxed too, and this is a great way to get the word out. If you use the site, if you love the team, hell, even if you’re kind of bored, the invite feature is for you!

When you send an e-mail to all your contacts, send an e-mail to sophia@team.shoeboxed.com with your mailing address and we’ll send you a crisp, new Shoeboxed t-shirt.

I wear mine every day.

On Wednesday, Apple announced that it will reduce the price of its much-hyped iPhone from $599 to $399 for its 8GB model. The new price is still a little out of my budget, so I don’t have one yet. It was completely different story, though, for those people that had bought them before the reduction. They were a little angry.

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, apparently got hundreds of personal e-mails from furious costumers about the price reduction. Imagine buying a full-priced iPhone on Tuesday, only to wake up to the news of the price reduction. Ouch.

In response to the outrage, Jobs, in a great PR move, posted a letter on the Apple website. In the letter, he explained that he thought his decision to reduce the price was the right move, but compromised with iPhone buyers by offering them a $100 credit that can be used toward the purchase of other Apple products.

Some people think this is brilliant, some people are just steaming mad. Over here at Shoeboxed, I’m just thinking, “I hope they have their receipts.” The only thing worse than paying $200 more than everybody else for your cell phone is losing out on the $100 of free Apple stuff too because you can’t prove that you actually bought the iPhone.

If any of these early iPhone adopters was using Shoeboxed, though, it couldn’t be easier for them to walk into the Apple store, show them their receipt and cash in on that store credit. Apple offers e-mail receipts for any purchase, no matter if it was purchased online or in one of their brick-and-mortar stores. If you bought an iPhone and had the receipt sent to Shoeboxed, you are in the clear. And if you chose to opt-out of the e-mail receipt option at Apple, you could have scanned your receipt into your Shoeboxed account, and saved it.

You never know when your receipts are going to come in handy. Who knows, that crumpled one in your wallet might be worth $100 one day…

Edit: fixed links 9-10-07 - MTR

When I first registered for my Shoeboxed account, I wanted to fill up my account with all my purchasing information. But alas, I am a poor college student, and couldn’t afford to go on a shopping spree right then and there just to watch the receipts go in (though I did make one or two impulse buys anyway…). So I went through my personal inbox, and dug out all my old receipts. It was a pain, but I realized that it was the last time I would ever have to sift through thousands of e-mails to find the few important receipts.

I forwarded all these e-mail receipts to my @shoeboxed.com account, and they show up just as they would have if the store had sent it directly there. Shoeboxed doesn’t care that I forwarded it, the plane ticket I bought six months ago still says it’s from Travelocity. Sweet!

Once I had all my old receipts in there, I was shocked at how much I had spent online in the past two years. Old purchases I had completely forgotten about really reminded me of how much I consistently overlook my budget. I don’t consider myself an avid online shopper, but the expenses were really racking up!

There’s just no better way to get an comprehensive snapshot of your spending than to see everything you’ve bought, all listed in one place. It’s so simple, and it’s the core functionality of Shoeboxed. If you haven’t tried it yet, you’re missing out!

When it comes to online shopping, I’ve realized that my mom isn’t really seeing the whole picture. Sure, she’s learned to order her running shoes online so that she can save money. We’ve set up online banking so that she can easily pay all of the bills electronically, saving paper and minimizing piles on the kitchen counter. She even knows that there’s a way to download music with something called “iTunes” that somehow can get on your “iPod”. Yes, she uses air quotes.

But I don’t think she realizes all of the ways that the internet can improve her day-to-day life. If she needs to find research for a paper she’s writing on childhood development, even the local librarian is going to recommend Google Scholar as a starting point. If she needs a detailed map from St. Louis to Durham, it’s always faster to use Mapquest or Google Maps. If she misses the finale of her favorite show, she should know that they are often available for free on the network’s website.

So it’s time I step in. I can’t say that I understand what moms out there want. And I certainly don’t claim to understand how my mom thinks — AT ALL. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the point. No one has ever taken the time to tell my mom what she should know about the internet — how it can make her life easier. The more time I spend working at Shoeboxed, the more I feel compelled to help my mom see what she’s missing.

So if you want to use the internet—if you want to know how it can make your life easier, here are a few sites that you might want to check out:

Amazingmail.com. Let’s start with the basics. Who doesn’t like to show off the cool places they have visited? Now you can do it easily and cheaply. Upload your digital photos to the computer (the camera should come with instructions…) and make a postcard that you can send to friends. It’s a great alternative to the yearly Christmas card, and the product always looks great. Then check out Ofoto.com where you can print your favorites.

Keycode.com and HotCoupons.com. You might want to sit down for this one. There are online sites that specialize in coupons! Many of the sites offer deals for specific retailers that can’t be found in the weekend newspaper. And don’t think that you can’t find local deals—you can enter your city’s name and “local coupons” into Google and find printable bar codes for your favorite shops.

Iexplore.com. You know something’s good when it’s affiliated with National Geographic. If you want to go on an exciting vacation but don’t have any time to plan it, you should check out this site. It has travel and activity guides for every inch of the globe, with advice on how to get the most out of your vacation. Whether you’re looking to climb a mountain or go sailing, Iexplore can make the appropriate recommendation (based on your experience and the trip’s level of difficulty). It will even recommend pre-screened travel and gear packages.

Rottentomatoes.com. When you’re in the mood for a romantic comedy, do you really trust the opinion of Roger Ebert, Richard Roepert, or Gene Shallot? Of course not. This is a democracy, people—when I’m choosing a movie, I want to hear the opinion of all the qualified critics and film gurus. Next time you’re heading to the cinema, check out rottentomatoes.com. The “Tomatometer” is the most trusted scale when it comes to finding the freshest movie. On a scale from one to ten, anything over a seven is a safe bet.

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