I'm late to the show for getting into the investing game. I'm 33, I make $110k/year and save 30%, but spent my 20s slowly accumulating $150k in a money market, putting a few thousand a year into TSP, and maxing out my Roth IRA (but only in a single fund). Last summer I started transferring huge amounts of cash to a new portfolio in USAA based on their recommendations. It was a "moderate" mix of bonds and stock funds in about 7 different funds and I elected to manage it myself which is to say I stared at it for 6 months and it stayed pretty flat. Last month I shook it up to keep my overall stock portfolio moderate, but my Roth (5 funds now) more aggressive. I also chose to have USAA manage both of them it to see if I get better returns. They charge a 1% management fee. I'm now in 19 funds in a wide mix of US and International bonds, equities, and stock funds.
My reason for writing is I loaded everything into Personal Capital last night and this morning I got a series of messages saying 19% of my eventual earnings will go to fees and 14 of my funds have expense ratios of .9 to 1.37%. All I read on MMM is people talking about index funds. USAA has four of them, but I'm not in any of them. I'm worried that I made a big mistake with my choices so far and the conflicting advice I've read recently. My portfolio (TSP, various funds, and Roth IRA) are worth about $300k. I still have $45k in a money market that I haven't moved yet, and $26k in a high-load mutual fund that I'm in the middle of transferring to USAA from another institution so I can do something else with it. If anyone has any advice or insights I would really appreciate it.