Mutual funds are the only real option for a lot of casual investors and those with the time or experience necessary manage their own portfolio. This quote emphasizes the need to choose your fund wisely:

As you might expect, fees and expenses vary from fund to fund. A fund with high costs must perform better than a low-cost fund to generate the same returns for you. Even small differences in fees can translate into large differences in returns over time. For example, if you invested $10,000 in a fund that produced a 10% annual return before expenses and had annual operating expenses of 1.5%, then after 20 years you would have roughly $49,725. But if the fund had expenses of only 0.5%, then you would end up with $60,858—an 18% difference.

You can read more about mutual fund fees on the Security & Exchange Commission’s site

Here is an online calculator that will give you and indication of just how much your fund it really costing you.

This site also has an excellent calculator and other useful information on fund fees [requires free registration].

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