Impact of Fees on Your Investments

I believe in long-term investing in broad-based, low-cost ETFs and mutual funds.

But why?

A few main reasons:

I think it’s highly unlikely I can beat the market over a 50+ year investing career, so I want to match the market

Buying an S&P 500 or Total Stock Market ETF/fund requires no special knowledge, and I believe it gives me the best chance of maximizing my net worth over 50+ years.

The fees on these types of investments are incredibly low (often just a few hundredths of 1%) and you can easily DIY invest at every major brokerage.

I want to focus on fees today, as it isn’t entirely intuitive just what a difference fees make in your overall net worth.

Aubrey Williams, a longtime member of the ChooseFI community, who runs his “Advice-Only, Fee-Only, Fiduciary at All Times, Hourly Financial Planning for FI” advisory business Open Path Financial , put together a google sheet that show just how impactful fees are on your investments.

He ran a horse race for someone…