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What’s the total?
A receipt game

Before it fades

Read the total before the receipt fades. Every round, it fades faster.

Can you get past round 5?
Why do receipts fade? ↓

Why do receipts fade?

Most receipts aren’t printed with ink. They’re printed with heat, and the same chemistry that makes the print can undo it.

Store receipts are usually thermal paper. The paper is coated with a colorless dye and an acidic “developer.” When the printer’s head heats tiny dots on the coating, the two react and turn dark. No ink cartridge needed.

That coating keeps reacting to the world after you leave the store. Heat can darken the whole slip or wash the print out. Light, especially direct sun, slowly bleaches it. Oils, plasticizers in vinyl sleeves and wallets, and plain friction all wear the image down. Cheaper paper with a thinner protective coating fades fastest.

That’s the game above: a slip that was perfectly readable at the register, slowly turning into a blank strip.

How long does a receipt last?

It depends on the paper and where the receipt lives. Paper makers sell longer-life thermal grades rated for years in cool, dark storage. But low-grade paper can fade within weeks, and a hot car speeds everything up. The receipts you need most, the ones for work, usually spend their lives in exactly the wrong places:

Where it livesWhat happens
Glovebox or dashboardSummer heat and sun are the fastest way to lose the print.
Wallet or pocketFriction and body heat wear the text, and folds rub the print away at the creases.
Plastic sleeve or vinyl folderPlasticizers can react with the coating and erase the image.
Shoebox in a closetBetter: cool and dark. But it’s still one copy, and it’s still fading.

How to keep receipts from fading

  1. Keep them cool and out of the sun. Not the dashboard, not the glovebox.
  2. Keep them away from plastic. Paper envelopes beat vinyl sleeves.
  3. Don’t fold, rub, or stack them under heavy things. Friction fades thermal print.
  4. Keep hands, lotion, and sanitizer off the print side.
  5. Make a copy the day you get it. A clear photo or scan is the only version that won’t fade. That’s what we built ReceiptNest’s receipt scanner for.

How long should you keep receipts?

For U.S. taxes, the IRS ties how long you keep records to the period it can review your return. From the IRS’s own guidance:

SituationKeep records
Most returns3 years
Claim for a credit or refund after filing3 years from filing, or 2 years from paying the tax, whichever is later
Income left off the return that’s more than 25% of the gross income shown6 years
Loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction7 years
No return filed, or a fraudulent returnIndefinitely
Employment tax recordsAt least 4 years

A thermal receipt that fades in a year doesn’t survive a 3-year window. This is general information, not tax advice. Ask your tax professional what your situation needs.

Are photos of receipts good enough?

The IRS lists receipts among the supporting documents a business should keep, and says the requirements for paper records also apply to electronic storage systems. Its detailed rules for those systems are in Revenue Procedure 97-22, which requires, among other things, that stored records be accurate, legible, and retrievable. A sharp photo taken the day you got the receipt is legible. A blank strip of thermal paper isn’t.

If you’re wondering whether your bank statement can stand in instead, we wrote about that too: Can bank statements replace receipts for taxes?

How to play Before It Fades

  • A receipt appears, crisp, then starts to fade.
  • Tap the total before it’s gone. Four answers, one right. The wrong ones are the misreads a faded receipt really causes: a 3 that looks like an 8, a 1 that looks like a 7, the subtotal instead of the total.
  • Every round fades faster, and new problems stack up: crumpled paper, coffee, a bumpy dashboard, the dome light at night.
  • Three misses and the run is over. Today’s run uses the same receipts for everyone, so you can compare scores with friends.

Every store, address, and amount in the game is invented.

Questions

Is today’s run the same for everyone?

Yes. The receipts and answer choices come from today’s date, so everyone who plays today’s run sees the same sequence. Practice runs are random.

Why are the wrong answers so close?

Because that’s how faded receipts fail. Thermal print loses dots, and a 3 starts to look like an 8, a 1 like a 7. Later rounds add the subtotal and the change as traps, like a real receipt.

Does ReceiptNest do my taxes?

No. ReceiptNest is just your receipts: snap or forward them, see them sorted by month, and export a PDF or CSV for whoever does your taxes. See how freelancers use it at tax time.

Can I use this game in a class or a post?

Yes, link to this page. It’s free, with nothing to install.

Keep the copy that doesn’t fade.

Snap the receipt when you get it. ReceiptNest keeps the photo, sorts it by month, and exports a PDF or CSV for your accountant. No bank login, no bookkeeping.

Start free How it works

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