<prompt> Human: A little background. Im 26. I put enough in my 401k to get my employers full match, and I started a Roth IRA last year. Ive inherited a little bit of money which Ive used to start the account referenced here. My financial advisor is a longtime friend of the family and has managed my moms portfolio for years. I definitely trust him, but the comments in the Frontline special made me very nervous. Interested to hear PFs take on his response to the special and my questions about the fees for my account: The claim that 2 fees for a fund earning 7 meaning the fund actually made 9 would cost 23rds of an investment value over a lifetime is mathematically correct, IF the investment lifetime is over 60 years. The same is true for a fund earning 10 with a 2 fee fund actually made 12. Heres how the math looks, assuming a 10,000 investment compounding for 60 years: 79 difference 579,4641,760,31367 1012 difference 3,044,8168,975,96966 This raises 2 questions- What are those fees? What are the alternatives? Mutual funds which charge in the range of 2 are typically C-share or level-load funds- funds which do not charge a commission up front but pay the advisor ongoing compensation as long as the fund is held. 1 is paid for that purpose, and the remainder stays with the mutual fund company to pay their expenses, compensate their employees and make a profit. The advantage of this type of fund is the flexibility- an investor can use many different fund families and can change funds typically after 1 year without having to overcome a large up-front commission. The drawback is that the expenses are higher. For an investor who utilizes an advisor, the C-share arrangement can help to alleviate concerns over recommendations being motivated by making a high commission vs. recommendations being motivated by making an account grow. An alternative that the guy from Vanguard the founder, John Bogle would rather have investors use it to only invest in low-cost index funds. The implication of his stance is that instead of the 9 whittled down to 7, by using his fund youd only whittle the 9 down to, say, 834. Mathematically he is correct. However there are a lot of ifs contained in his assumption- IF the index earns that amount, and IF the investors return is close to what the fund earns. The first if- looking at the Standard Poors 500 index, the most popular index and Vanguards largest index fund, on a price basis from early 2000 to today is up 8.7- total. That works out to just over 12 of 1 per year, a far cry from the numbers he cited. But I think the second if is even bigger. A highly respected statistics firm, DALBAR, has tracked annually the return achieved by the average investor vs. the return of the funds they invested in. On average, for more than 20 years, the average investor has lagged by over 4. This tends to be due to the investor buying high and selling low. The amount by which the average investor underperforms the market averages dwarfs the amount by which the average fund underperforms. Telling the mathematical truth without discussing the behavioral truth about investing only tells part of the story. The reality is that investor behavior has a far greater impact on ones portfolio than investment behavior. In your own case, I feel that the funds you have will, over time, give you better than index performance, and that my initial selection and ongoing advice regarding the funds will be worth the fees charged. ... Then he included some information about the funds Im currently in and what their fees, are ... Links to where I can find the Net Expense Ratios for a variety of funds ... Remember that some of your funds are tactical in nature and have the ability to move away from stocks in times of market stress. Some invest in assets other than stocks, so may not perform as well when the market is going up but may outperform when stocks are out of favor  <response>: He is being somewhat clear. He is paid 1yr on C share funds.Do you value his services and time to be worth 1 of your invested account balance? If so, then you need to mentally realize a portion of these expenses you are concerned with is buying his timeservices.If you dont judge it to be worth 1, then obviously find a lowerno fee investment, which basically means you do it yourself amd cut ties with this advisor. 