Preserving Thermal Receipts

I am not a fan of thermal receipts, but they’ve taken over the word and now we have to deal withe them. Not even addressing all of the health an environmental problems with thermal receipts, my biggest issue is that they fade. Even if you are careful to put your important receipts into a folder or file, I’m sure you’ve had at least one time you needed a receipt for taxes or a warranty claim and when you went to dig it out you found a collection of unreadable pieces of paper. I have two suggestions for addressing this first world problem:

  1. If you have a camera enabled phone, take a picture of the receipt as soon as it is in your hand, and file it in a folder called Receipts. A digital copy will last forever, if you maintain decent backups.
  2. Before you file the physical receipt away, ‘laminate’ it with packing tape. I recommend 3M Heavy Duty Shipping Tape for its strength and durability. You still need to store your preserved receipt someplace cool and dark, but this will slow down the eventual oxidation of your receipt. DO NOT use a heat laminating machine, as that will turn your receipt black.

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