• Home
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Policy
  • Guest Post
  • Archive

One Cent At A Time

A Personal finance blog to get rich

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Beautiful Life
  • Becoming Rich
  • Beginners Guide
  • Extra Income
  • Productivity
  • Saving Money

Go Paperless, Save Environment, Save Money

July 27, 2011 23 Comments

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email

A week back I received a letter from T Rowe Price in my mail box telling me about a fee increase which is to be in effect starting September.  T Rowe will assess an annual fee of $20 for mutual fund accounts having balance less than $10,000. I have four mutual fund accounts with them, with none having that kind of balance, so starting from September 1, I would have required to pay $80 per year towards fees (Account service fee, fancy name). Good for me that the ways to avoid the account service fee was also mentioned in the letter.

Paperless EnvironmentOnly one way I could have had avoided the fee was to go paperless on statements, trade confirmations, prospectus and shareholder reports (other way was to make combined balance worth more than $100,000, oops.. so close). This is true with almost any financial institution these days. All of them offers paperless features. Not only they save you money, but also they are environment friendly.(Read – 101 ways to save energy and environment).

Other areas where you can go paperless are your bills and receipts from in-store shopping. We need to keep all such documents for year-end tax filing purpose. If you itemize your return you should have those receipts ready for IRS audit, should it happen.

The ink that is used to pint such receipts, usually disappears within few months, then it becomes hard to read it. To the rescue, there is an online service called Shoeboxed. They charge $10 per month for individual account (with 30 day trial, no risk period) to store those receipts online. You can send up to 50 receipts per month by mail and within a week they will upload those to you account.

In my case I take images of them every time I have a new receipt with my cell phone, and upload on my Shoeboxed account. Not only for tax purpose, I use them for my budgeting purpose as well. At the same time a Shoeboxed account help you de-clutter! You can first try it out at no cost in free trial period, you can cancel within first 30 days,if you don’t like and not pay any money.

Now let’s talk about the advantages and disadvantages of going paperless.

Pros and cons of going paperless 

Pros

1. Avoid service fees, cool, that is $80 a year save.
2. Will receive e-mails 2 days before I normally receive paper mails, early document delivery
3. Less clutter at home, I receive almost 50 paper mails from them in a year, they occupy a large space and I have Fidelity and TD Ameritrade as well, huh!
4. Can access my previous statements, 12 in this case, I can get access to them even from my iPhone.
5. Less environmental damage (well as much as I could do), let the pleasant picture below talk about this, can save trees like these.
6. Save on time as I don’t have to go through pile of papers to find the old bills, more weekend free time, wife would be happier.

Cons

1. I am used to read physical copies of shareholder reports and new fund prospectus from them, how can I go paperless suddenly, nope nope.
2. Risk of missing an important line item on my statement, if there’s any, on electronic copy, what if I miss it every month? Would I be paying more than $80 I am saving this way.

As you can see, pros easily overshadowed cons, only if I can be extra vigilant and scrutinize my e-bills, I made a pledge to check each and every bill closely, marked my calendar and went for enrolling in to paperless delivery, within next 5 minutes I saved $80 bucks from draining away each year.

The point is, it costs nearly a dollar to print every statement and mail it to your address. In a year that’s a neat $12 bucks, and add to it the mandatory disclosures and other communication that they send you periodically. A $20 fee straight.

In this era of cut throat competition to surpass each other’s profit margins, these institution looking for ways to cut cost, if a particular way to cut cost proves to be successful for one, in no time every other ones replicate the same practice.

No wonder, a research online revealed that there are various other financials institutions and banks exist that offer reward for customers for going green.

Discover cards is running $30,000 give away for going green
TD Ameritrade charges $2 for each paper statements
Vanguard has exactly same service fee (as T Rowe Price) of $20 for each fund with a balance less than $10,000

These are just a few names, almost every brokerage and funds have some kind of incentive or other for customers when they opt for paperless statements.

One Unique mention is of T-Mobile, which plants a tree for each customer opting for paperless statement, go T!

Note: If you receive a mailer from your broker or fund managers on a new or increased fee (it’s mandated by fed, you got to receive this notification in writing before the fee  increase), which can be waived by going green, log on to online account and search for the same notice there, chances are it’s in your account mail box, and in electronic version, you might find a link to enroll in paperless statement. It won’t take more than 2 mins.

 

LIKE THIS POST?
I agree to have my personal information transfered to MailChimp ( more information )
Join our community of 8000+ subscribers to increase your net worth and build wealth
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
The tool that changed the way I manage my personal finance - Personal Capital, The Best Free Personal Finance Tool

Want to start a WordPress blog now? The onecentatatime.com blog is hosted by Siteground Web Hosting. For only $3.95 a month, Siteground can help you set up and host your website/blog quickly and easily.

About the Blogger Hi I am SB, a personal finance enthusiast with a career in software development. I am an immigrant to the USA since 2005, after being born and brought up in India. This 40 something technocrat lives and breathes personal finance whenever he gets time from the day job, job as a husband and a dad

Some links on this page may be affiliate links, if you make a purchase following the links, I may earn a commission. Read affiliate disclosure here
« What To Do When You Don’t Have Health Insurance
Do You Need Store Credit Card? I Don’t »

Comments

  1. Financial Success for Young Adults says

    July 27, 2011 at 8:06 AM

    Go green! I hope you decide to go with paperless statements. Storage is moving to the cloud anyway. Might as well have a digital copy ready to go.

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:29 PM

      nothing beats checking my statements and papers from phone, computer who ever access cloud..

      Reply
  2. Gabriella says

    July 27, 2011 at 9:15 AM

    Great post 😀 very inrofamtive with the tips I must say. 🙂 paperless is the way 🙂

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:29 PM

      Smile

      Reply
  3. Niki says

    July 27, 2011 at 9:28 AM

    I like having no paper, it is great for organization to have everything on the computer. We just have to remember to back up often and use our external harddrive.

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:31 PM

      with storage capacity growing at the rate it is, I can’t see a need for external drive, everything can be stored in cloud. connect to it and get whatever you need to get

      Reply
  4. Dining Out Challenge says

    July 27, 2011 at 9:41 AM

    I haven’t made the switch yet but know I will soon, especially since my bank is charging $3 a month for a paper statement.

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:28 PM

      There you go! sooner you switch more money you save., go for it

      Reply
  5. Hunter says

    July 27, 2011 at 1:11 PM

    Great arguments for going paperless. Who wants to find a place for more paper records anyway?

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:27 PM

      not me!! are you full paperless yet?

      Reply
      • Hunter says

        July 28, 2011 at 3:28 AM

        Almost. With the exception of a few bills, we’re just about there.

        Reply
        • SB says

          July 28, 2011 at 7:40 AM

          there you go!

          Reply
  6. Suba says

    July 27, 2011 at 2:31 PM

    I made the switch in 2007 when companies were offering incentives to go paperless instead of penalizing to stay with paper. Now I have a complete electronic filing system that reflects my regular filing exactly. So I have not missed getting paper statements (I still get way too many junk).

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 3:33 PM

      But for me this is the first time I was threatened with a penalty, my banks are paperless but brokers were papers, but I will convert my accounts with Fidelity and Ameritrade as well to paperless

      Reply
  7. retirebyforty says

    July 27, 2011 at 6:08 PM

    I like electronic statements too, but sometime a paper trail is very useful. Some of my investments have been transferred from broker to broker and they don’t have accurate paid price anymore. These days, I keep track of paid price in a spread sheet, but the paper trail is still useful. Electronic statements are the way of the future though.

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 27, 2011 at 8:14 PM

      Why don’t you save your e-statements and other e-documents in your computer, these are PDF files, can be downloaded from your account. Create a folder for each investments you have and store the PDFs accordingly, no hassle, no space and no time to find what you need in future.

      Reply
  8. Paula @ AffordAnything.org says

    July 28, 2011 at 12:50 AM

    I’ve been fully paperless for years and love it … it’s much easier for me to organize on a computer than it is to wonder, “gee, where did I put that paper statement?”

    Reply
    • SB says

      July 28, 2011 at 7:38 AM

      nice to know that, it’s time for me to be completely paperless

      Reply
  9. Valeri says

    August 3, 2011 at 10:35 AM

    hello there, very good page, and a very good understand! just one for my favorites.

    Reply
  10. Super Frugalette says

    August 5, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    I should really call my bank to get my checking account paperless. I am always concerned about being the victim of identity theft *again*.

    Reply
    • SB says

      August 5, 2011 at 8:41 PM

      Come on stealing identity has nothing to do with you being paperless or not. In fact personal data on papers pose greater risk. Go be green!

      Reply
  11. Paul @ The Frugal Toad says

    September 13, 2011 at 12:17 AM

    I try to go paperless on everything we can. I called the city utility department about offering paperless but they said it was years away from being an option. It is amazing at the amount of paper that is wasted.

    Reply
  12. Lauren Bernardo says

    October 30, 2012 at 4:11 PM

    I don’t have experience in terms of no longer receiving paper invoices for mutual funds, but I have switched over to paperless on my cell phone bills. The original threat was that companies would start charging me additional dollars on my bills if I were to continue to receive paper billings. I am quite aware that there is a lot of paper wasted in the printing of bills, but I do like to keep a paper trail especially for my Mastercard statements. And then the cost of printing is then transferred over to me instead. I am happy about the fact that there is an effort by some of these company’s to plant tree’s etc, like TMobile. Hats off to them.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Create your own blog in 20 minutes and $20

Personal Capital, a free tool to change your financial health today

I use and suggest Upstart, for your personal loan need

CreditKarma, a free tool to check your credit scorey

I use Coinbase, for my crypto investments

101 Cents at a Time

101 Ways to Earn Extra Money on the Side
201 Frugal and Perfect Birthday Gifts
101 Ways to Save Money Everyday
101 Ways to be Better and Successful at Work
101 Ways to Save Environment and Energy
101 Frugal and Romantic Anniversary Ideas
101 Low-Cost Men's Fashion Ideas
101 Personal Finance Tips
101 Ways to Reuse Household Stuff
101 Things to Do, When Nothing to Do
101 College Graduation Gift Ideas
100 Tips for Ecommerce Startup
101 Ways to Enjoy Indoor During Winter
101 Ways to Beat Procrastination

Popular Posts

Quick Cash - How to make $100 legally, in a day
Living well on less than $15,000 a Year
Top survey sites for side income
What to do when auto repair goes wrong
Where should I invest my money now?
20 Ways to be productive and happy at work
51 Ways to get out of debt
Be a better person in 15 days, 15 ways
Income ideas for retirees and senior citizens
51 side jobs for college students
Urgently need a large amount of money?
Should I buy or should I rent?
Best Personal loan providers
25 Ways to save environment
25 DIY car repairs to save money
How to decorate office cubicle
How to show your wife you care
50 Financial Rules for Success
51 Frugal weekend family activity ideas
Become Rich By Saving 1 Hour Of Daily Wage
How much do I need to save for retirement?
How to negotiate your salary

Follow us on FaceBook

About Author

SB

Blogger by choice and IT manager by profession. Finance is my passion and gardening is my greatest satisfaction. Born in India, settled in US, Husband and a father. I created this blog in 2011 with a vision to help others. Thanks for your patronage. More info on my "about" page.

View all posts


Subscribe

Join our community of 5000+ subscribers to increase net worth and build wealth

Advertisements

Personal Stories

How I got a new HP computer replaced
Was COVID circulating in USA in fall of 2019?
How my credit score went up 800+
Why I didn’t invest in Bitcoins
How I controlled impulses to buy things
Why this blog is named One Cent at a Time

Subscribe via Email

Site Disclaimer

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in this web site are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Read full Affiliate disclosure


One Cent at a Time is published by SB. The opinions expressed herein by him are his own and not those of his employer or anyone else. All content on One Cent at a Time is for entertainment purposes only. By reading this blog, you agree that SB and/or One Cent at a Time is not responsible for any actions taken after reading this blog. For the full disclaimer, click here .

Major Media Mention

One Cent at a Time Media Appearances

Copyright © 2023 One Cent At A Time · Designed by Nuts and Bolts Media