Found out my old 401k was charging me 1.2% in fees each year

I was just poking around my old job's 401k statements last month, not really paying attention. Saw a line item for admin fees and decided to do the math. Turns out over 10 years, that 1.2% would eat up something like $15,000 of my balance. I called the plan provider and they walked me through the fee breakdown. Anyone else check their old plans lately and get hit with this? What did you do about it?

2 comments

2 Comments

patriciamoore1mo ago

Roll that 401k into an IRA and you can pick funds with 0.03% fees instead.

blairwhite29d ago

Yeah, "pick funds with 0.03% fees" is the dream scenario but it's also a little misleading. Most people don't have access to institutional class shares that are that cheap unless they're rolling into a Vanguard or Fidelity IRA and specifically picking their index funds (like VTSAX or something similar). Even then, some of those funds have minimum investment amounts of $1,000 to $3,000, so if you're rolling over a small balance you might end up in a slightly higher fee share class anyway. And don't forget, some brokerages have account fees or transaction costs that can eat into those tiny expense ratios too. It's still way better than 1.2% though, don't get me wrong - just don't expect to magically get 0.03% on everything without a little homework first.