Yesterday I was fortunate enough to find myself out on a peaceful trout stream, with no one else around and the car long out of site I found myself at peace and that my mind was starting to wander. Even though the weather was cold and windy and to top it off the fish weren't biting, I was still able to leave with something I hadn't brought in, peace of mind and a couple of ideas for articles. I know that it has been said a hundred times before, but minimizing your costs while investing can make a big difference in your overall returns. This concept is especially true for mutual fund or index fund investors, but stock investors can gain from this advice as well.

First and foremost, lets talk about trading fees, these are the fees that you pay every time that you initiate a trade (be it a buy or a sell). There are a staggering amount of investors that are still paying ridiculous fees for every trade they make. Let me put it this way, I pay $4.95 for every trade I make, how much do you pay? My guess is if its not close to this, then it is MUCH higher. I am a strong believer in discount brokers, this is because I am a hands on kind of guy and I don't need or want to pay extra fees for services I am not going to use. Every time I enter or exit a trade I am paying $4.95, this means that I pay a total of $9.90 in trading fees for every buy and sell I make. So, right off the top of every trade, I have to make at least $10 to cover my costs, thats not much right? Well, lets say you are paying the normal $29/trade that most banks charge you. That means that for every buy/sell you make you are paying a total of $58! this means that you need to make at least $58 to break even just on your trade! That is 5.85 TIMES the amount that you could be paying! Now some of you might be thinking that $58 is not a lot of money, and the extra features that you get with the account are worth it. To that statement I have to laugh, because almost anything you get with your account you can find online for free, or a lot cheaper then what your paying now. If you make 10 trades (a buy and a sell) a year, you are paying $580! thats a lot of money, and that is only for 10 trades which most of us make a lot more then that. I'm sure you get the point that I am trying to put across here. If you are happy with the service that you currently get, and you don't feel that you could trade successfully without it, then by all means stay with what your doing and spend the extra money. But if you want to save money, then give a discount broker a try to reduce your overhead costs, especially if you are new to investing or don't have a lot of capital to work with, then going the discount broker route is by far the most important thing you can do. This is because you wont be wasting your scarce capital on fees and it gives you a bit more room to make errors and learn. (they will cost you a lot less then if you were paying higher fees)

The second way is directed at all the dividend based investors out there, because this is talking about something called a DRIP, I will cover DRIPS in more detail in a post dedicated to them, but here is a brief overview and how you can minimize your expenses by using them. So what is a DRIP? it is a Dividend Re-Investment Plan. What this means (in a very high level view) is that everytime the company that you own pays out a dividend you can have it reinvested at no cost back into more shares of the same company. The key point here, is that you can buy more shares of the company at no additional cost to you. If you were to let the dividends go back into your account, and then decided to buy more shares, it would cost you the extra trading fees. This way you can do it for free, BUT you have to know that you are stuck buying shares in the company the dividends are coming from. Not all companies provide DRIPs and a lot of them require that you have a minimum amount of returns before you can participate, but there are more options, in fact there are 3 different types of drips, which I don't want to get into in this post. Just know that if you are receiving dividends from your investments, there is a way that you can reinvestment at no extra charge. So if your interested, take some time to look into your companies (or brokers) DRIP options.

The final way I want to talk about is directed at Mutual Fund, Index fund and ETF investors. This has to do with the MER or (Management Expense Ratio) that you are paying for your funds. The most effective way that you can increase your returns from your funds is by reducing the MER you pay. Lets say you own a mutual fund that charges an MER of 2%, this means that if your fund gives you a return of 5% for the year, the fund company takes 2% right off the top. So you really only make a return of 3% for the year. Ouch! Depending on how much you have invested, that could be a lot of money that you are losing here. So, it is a good idea to try to find comparable funds that charge a lower MER, because over the long run, that 2% really does add up. I have to say that a lower MER doesn't always mean its better, if a fund has an MER of 4%, but has a long track record of returning a 14% return, well, that means you'll be making 10% which is a lot better option then choosing a fund with an MER of 0.5% but only returns 9%. You have to use your here, but if all returns being equal between two funds, the better choice is to go with the one that has a lower MER.

To summarize, whenever you are making investment decisions, its always a good idea to think about your total overhead expenses and look to see if there are any ways that you can lower them. So remember, you can Maximize Returns By Minimizing Expenses and as we all know, "a penny saved, is a penny earned" ( or 2 pennies earned in after tax dollars ;-) )

Disclaimer: Any information contained in the above article represents my opinions only, and should not be construed as personalized investment advice. I cannot assess, verify or guarantee the suitability of any particular investment to any particular situation and the reader of the article bears complete responsibility for its own investment research and should seek the advice of a qualified investment professional that provides individualized advice prior to making any investment decisions. All opinions expressed and information and data provided therein are subject to change without notice.