Author Topic: Are these considered high fees?  (Read 1412 times)

jhrobbin

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Are these considered high fees?
« on: May 05, 2019, 05:07:05 PM »
My wife is a public school teacher and we are about to start investing in her 457 plan and 401k.  (As an aside, I'm surprised they call it a 401k because in every other school district she's worked they have been called 403b.)

I'm used to good ole low cost and easy to understand Vanguard fees (ie. VTSAX = 0.04%).  Typically, teacher retirement options are notoriously high in fees.  As the Millionaire Educator blog states:
Quote
In all our years of teaching we have only had one decent 457 plan, Aspire Financial Services.  Usually, we had fee-bloated variable annuity plans that we refused to invest in due to their fee structure.  Instead, we decided to use our 457 plans TO SAVE IN ONLY.

https://www.millionaireeducator.com/2017/09/7-reasons-to-love-your-457-plan.html

Would you consider these options fee-bloated?  Here's a link to the plan options: https://copera401k.voya.com/einfo/fundinfo.aspx?cl=CORADO&pl=650301PU&page=investment_informationfundfees&s=&d=ce4791fb72934759a7898de9fbe03f04e00ac982

"PERAdvantage U.S. Large Cap Stock Fund" which seems the closest option available to S&P 500 has Total Asset-Based Fee Percentage 0.08% + "Plan Administration Flat Fee of $1.00 per month per plan"

Am I missing something or are these fees not too bad all things considered?


« Last Edit: May 05, 2019, 05:11:13 PM by jhrobbin »

FIREstache

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Re: Are these considered high fees?
« Reply #1 on: May 05, 2019, 05:25:20 PM »
My wife is a public school teacher and we are about to start investing in her 457 plan and 401k.  (As an aside, I'm surprised they call it a 401k because in every other school district she's worked they have been called 403b.)

I'm used to good ole low cost and easy to understand Vanguard fees (ie. VTSAX = 0.04%).  Typically, teacher retirement options are notoriously high in fees.  As the Millionaire Educator blog states:
Quote
In all our years of teaching we have only had one decent 457 plan, Aspire Financial Services.  Usually, we had fee-bloated variable annuity plans that we refused to invest in due to their fee structure.  Instead, we decided to use our 457 plans TO SAVE IN ONLY.

https://www.millionaireeducator.com/2017/09/7-reasons-to-love-your-457-plan.html

Would you consider these options fee-bloated?  Here's a link to the plan options: https://copera401k.voya.com/einfo/fundinfo.aspx?cl=CORADO&pl=650301PU&page=investment_informationfundfees&s=&d=ce4791fb72934759a7898de9fbe03f04e00ac982

"PERAdvantage U.S. Large Cap Stock Fund" which seems the closest option available to S&P 500 has Total Asset-Based Fee Percentage 0.08% + "Plan Administration Flat Fee of $1.00 per month per plan"

Am I missing something or are these fees not too bad all things considered?

That's great.  $1.00/mo is $12/yr.  That's only 0.012% on a $100,000 balance.    My retirement plan through work has an S&P 500 fund that's about 0.5% expense ratio, plus I pay a 0.34% plan administration fee on the full balance as well, for a total of 0.84% on an S&P 500 fund.  And many of the funds are over 1% for the expense ratio plus the 0.34% admin fee.  Yours looks great by comparison.

TomTX

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Re: Are these considered high fees?
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2019, 06:58:59 PM »
Very reasonable fees.

MustacheAndaHalf

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Re: Are these considered high fees?
« Reply #3 on: May 06, 2019, 10:10:17 AM »
Wow!  As that page was loading, I saw "voya" in the URL and guessed that yes the fees would be bloated... but those expense ratios are reasonable!

When I see "Voya", most often I see funds like "Voya U.S. High Dividend Low Volatility Fund", which charges a 1.7% expense ratio and up to a 5.75% sales charge.  Fortunately they decided not to use their own funds in your case.

GuitarStv

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Re: Are these considered high fees?
« Reply #4 on: May 06, 2019, 10:17:14 AM »
Are there any front or end loaded fees associated with the fund?  I've found that sometimes investment companies are not all that forthcoming about these fees.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!