patrick.net

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Mutual_funds_and_fees

There are graphs that show over time the effect of fees on an investment

Scroll down on this to get an idea of how fees affect your investment

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/business-economy-financial-crisis/retirement-gamble/how-retirement-fees-cost-you/

There was an interesting Frontline PBS show on this recently. It's pretty shocking.

There is nothing wrong with 401Ks per se. It's the fees of the funds in the 401K. Those fees can be 1.25% or you can go to your company and ask them to use funds with lower fees like .25% or lower.

MsBennet says

There was an interesting Frontline PBS show on this recently. It's pretty shocking.

I saw that. I even recorded it. I checked with my Benefits coordinator here, and he assured me that the firm covers our fees instead of passing them on to us.

I understand there are lots of different fee types as well. A friend of mine was touting his Morningstar service due to the larger returns. He said it was a half a point and he didn't worry too much about the cost.

But then I realized, it would be helpful to illustrate the "costs" of those fees over the lifetime of your investments.

And which fees are reasonable? And which are not? How many different types of fees are we subject to? Etc.