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.

Only 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.