By Jackie Jones

Just as I had gotten into the tech groove and adjusted to having extra regular bills: cable, cell phone and the Internet, in addition to gas, electric, water and a landline phone (yes, I still own one), the encroachment of added fees on those bills are threatening to turn me into a technophobe.

Look at your bills for your cell phone, cable service, satellite radio service and see how those numbers compare to what you thought you were going to pay when you first signed up. If you’re like most careful shoppers, you compared prices, amortized the special deals that promise you lower rates for the first six months to a year and patted yourself on the back for successful horse trading.

Then the bill arrives and it’s higher than you expected, not by much, but still more than you planned for. There extra “fees” weren’t quoted to you at the time you signed up for the special plan. Perhaps they were in the fine print of the statement, but who reads, much less understands, that stuff? Sometimes it’s not there at all until you call the vendor to complain and it is explained that these were new fees – the new fees that the fine print of your statement says the company can charge you at any time.

Want a paper copy of your bill? Be prepared to spend an extra buck or two. Do you get cash back when you use your debit card? Look at your next bank statement; you’ll likely see an extra ATM fee or two because the bank charges as if you had gone to a non-branch bank to withdraw money.

Sign up for a basic wireless deal and find out that there are activation fees, tolls, taxes and surcharges, even before you get dinged with any fees for exceeding the number of text messages, data transfers and voice minutes in your contract.

Some banks charge to download account information to budget management software such as Quicken. Others take a fee out when you buy a gift card, so your recipient doesn’t always get the full face value of the card.

Yes, Congress did pass the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, which was designed to regulate fees for gift cards, ATM withdrawals and credit cards. The only problem is the law doesn’t go into effect until August 2010. In the meantime, banks and credit card companies can basically stick it to consumers.

Use an online discount travel site? Before you take that super-saver fare, make sure you know what the taxes and fees are. Sometimes they make the ticket no cheaper than going directly to the airline’s Web site and booking the trip. Buying flight insurance, in case you have to change flights? Fees add an extra $25 or more to the total. Some airlines charge you for seat assignments, ranging from $7 to $20, depending on whether you want a window or an aisle seat or the front of the economy cabin.

What are the rules if you want to change your reservation? There is usually a change fee of $50 to $100, sometimes followed by other fees that may make it cheaper to simply buy a new ticket. More than likely, though, you will want to buy a round-trip ticket because you can get a better price. A one-way ticket may cost you more than the original trip.

And those are fees that many of us can afford to pay.

The poor and those who don’t particularly trust banks are paying added fees as well.

According to personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary, 60 million Americans conduct their financial affairs outside the banking system and that many of them get taken by payday-loan companies, rent-to-own establishments and other non-bank institutions.

The un- or underbanked are defined by the FDIC as those who have no checking or savings account, but use non-bank money orders, check-cashing services, payday loans, rent-to-own agreements or pawnshops at least once a year.

“Lower-income and minority populations are disproportionately represented among unbanked and underbanked households,” Singletary wrote in a recent column. “Households with incomes of less than $30,000 account for at least 71 percent of the unbanked. An estimated 21.7 percent of black households and 19.3 percent of Hispanic households are unbanked.”

The interest fees charged by these non-bank institutions eat up a large percentage of the poor’s earnings. And banks don’t seem particularly interested in bringing in the poor because they haven’t figured out how to make money off of providing bank products to them.

An FDIC survey found that 73 percent of banks who participated were aware of significant un- and underbanked populations in their community, but less than 18 percent had made it a priority to expand services to that group.

There are ways, however, to get a handle on these fees and getting your financial house in order – for free.

Singletary, for example, provides advice and links on her web site, as does Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, known as The Money Coach. Both take a solid, no-nonsense approach to getting your finances in line, avoid overspending and how to take it to the firms that find ways of to take advantage of consumers – even those who pay their bills faithfully and on time each month.

GotchaCapitalism.com identifies the areas that most commonly charge excessive fees and provides complaint letter templates to help you argue for a reduction or elimination of fees you believe to be unfair. BillShrink.com is free online service to help consumers make better financial decisions.

You may not be able to get rid of all the fees, but you can make a dent in the pile and put a little more cash in your pocket or your savings account. These days, every little bit helps.