How To Read A 401k Fund Menu In Three Steps
Twenty names built from the same eight words. Three things on that screen tell you what you need, and the rest is decoration.
Topic
fees
What A 1% Advisor Fee Costs Over 30 Years
One per cent a year sounds like a rounding error and is not one. On a $500,000 balance over thirty years it is close to a million dollars of ending value, and most of that is compounding you never see.
Term vs Whole Life: Why One Costs 8 Times More
One is insurance. The other is insurance bolted to an investment account with commissions taken out of the front. Separating them makes the price difference legible instead of suspicious.
Target Date Funds: What The Year On The Label Buys
One fund holding several others, shifting toward bonds on a published schedule. The convenience is real and the question is only ever what you are paying for it.
Why The Advice Industry Sells You Complexity
The strategy you cannot explain to a friend is not sophisticated, it is priced. Follow the fee model and the product makes perfect sense.
What A Brokerage Account Costs You At Tax Time
A regular brokerage account has no contribution limit and no rules about when you take the money out, and it charges you for that freedom every single year. The bill arrives as a tax form.
ETFs vs Mutual Funds: Only One Difference Costs You
Two wrappers around an identical basket of stocks, from the same firm, tracking the same index. Three things separate them, and only one of them will ever cost you money.
What A 0.75% Expense Ratio Costs Over 30 Years
The number is small, it is deducted invisibly, and over three decades it takes roughly a fifth of your balance. Here is the arithmetic, line by line, so you can check it yourself.
The Five Stops Your 401k Money Makes
One dollar, from the payroll deduction to the fund share it eventually buys. There are five stops along the way and two of them can cost you money quietly.
The Balance Transfer Fee Is Not The Number That Matters
A 3 per cent transfer fee on $6,000 is $180, and at normal card rates it pays for itself in under two months. The number that decides whether the transfer works is a different one entirely.
Compound, weekly
One money decision a week, with the arithmetic left in.
What the thing is, what it costs, and the sums worked out in full so you can check them. Free, no affiliate links, and you can leave in a click.
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