401k fees....Do you really know how much you pay?

Now, this topic is often times discussed in the media, but does an average John Q. Public (in our case, JQ Public, MD) know what exactly he/she is paying for a privilege of having  his retirement money to be exposed to the vagaries of the market?
My unscientific poll of my colleagues shows that 99%  of them are oblivious. Seeing the outrage on my face when I spoke about those fees, they politely  nodded their heads, but that was it.
To me, the asset-based fee of 0.33% PLUS monthly maintenance fees (that's what our 401k plan extracts-if not expropriates) amount to nothing less than a highway robbery.
Given the market projected return (risk premium, on top of risk free rate of 2.5% delivered by Treasuries), the asset based fee alone amounts to at least 10% of return!!
And we are not even talking about the expense ratios f the funds contained in 401k (average expense ratio is about 1-1.3%).
So right there, we're giving up close to 50% of potential return, while owning the 100% of risk.
But what else is there for retirement vehicles for middle class? (gasp)

State deferred compensation

For those of us who might be working in any shape of form for the State ( NY/NJ/CT etc..), and not necessarily full time- enough to get a small paycheck, which is often the case if your work for the " XXX State University Hospital" in any capacity:
you might be eligible to contribute to your  State deferred compensation program. No match, of course, by the State- just your own hard-earned, but pretax dollars. And that's on top of your annual limit of  $17,500 for 2014 you might be  already contributing to your private 401(k) through the "private" part of your work, up to the limit of, yes, another $17,500, totaling  $35,000/yr (without counting the match, or contributions by your employer). Now, that's a retirement planning!
(Anecdotally, most people who work for the State never heard of this, by the way)

Most mutual fund there are (relatively) decent, with low expense ratios, and they have my beloved index funds- by the way, yet another study came out showing how "great" active mutual fund managers are performing in the long run..  Will write about it in the next post...

Here's a website for those fortunate ones in NY State:

https://www.nysdcp.com/iApp/tcm/nysdcp/index.jsp

And for NJ:
http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/pensions/njsedcp.shtml

1 year later

Not writing for more than a year deserves serious "splaining". Well, there you have it: I change my old place of employ, having moved a bit up on a food chain.

Also, enrolled in one of those executive MBA programs. Not sure what to select for a concentration, but for a time being thinking of Finance.

And tried to wage an unsuccessful attempt for a change with fringe benefit committee at my new place, failing miserably to show them that they're getting ripped-off with those enormous 401k agent fees.

Also read some good books, one of them by John Bogle "Don't count on it!"

401k pains, part 2

At my (almost) new job, 401k is handled by a private company. Not that their mutual funds are atrociously expensive (they are, average expense ratio is about0.4%), but these guys also charge 0.1% management fee on all the money under management.

Most doctors will be fast asleep if your start talking "expense ratios" to them. No wonder they are oblivious to the fact that, if you believe the Wall St. gurus, the market returns are about 8% a year in a very long run, they are loosing 6 to 7% of these money- no, much more if you counting compound interest- it'll be close to 10%.

The other thing worth mentioning is that even those doctors who were entrusted to make decisions for the whole group about their 401k know very little about money in general let alone investing.

I heard one of the "seasoned" members of the fringe benefits committee seriously suggesting to "just select the best mutual funds out there and just invest in them" My humble statement that, in the long run, statistically speaking, half of the mutual funds' money managers will fail to keep up even with the average market returns, and it's close to impossible to predict which funds they are, was met with dead silence. When doctors have nothing to say....