Paying High Fees

A 1% annual fee sounds small. It's not. Over 30 years on a $500,000 portfolio earning 7%, a 1% fee costs you $300,000 in lost returns. A 0.03% index fund (like VTI or VOO) vs. a 1% actively managed fund: the difference over a career is a house. Vanguard founder Jack Bogle spent his entire career proving that low-cost index funds beat 85-90% of actively managed funds over 15+ year periods. The data is unambiguous. Yet Americans still pay an average of 0.44% in fund fees and often 1-1.5% to financial advisors on top of that. The fee drag is invisible until you calculate it — then it's devastating.