Did you know retirement fees could add up to over 100 thousand dollars by the time you retire?  Tara Lynn Wagner has the details in the following Money Matters report.

And coming up, you probably know you pay fees on your 401k account, but did you know those fees could add up to over 100 thousand dollars by the time you retire?  We'll have the details in the next Money Matters Report

 

You're doing the right thing - diligently setting money aside for retirement in your employer sponsored 401k plan. Each statement you get shows how much your nest egg has grown. It also shows how much you paid in fees. Brace yourself. It is way more than pocket change.

"Over a lifetime an American household will spend $155 thousand dollars in 401k fees, and in fact, each year Americans shell out $600 billion in 401k fees.  That's lunacy," says Ross Kenneth Urken, Personal Finance Editor at TheStreet.

Urken says even though the past few years have seen greater transparency when it comes to fees, it only helps if workers are paying attention.

"People don't want to go home and do their homework at night when they are already planning,” says Urken. “They are setting it and forgetting it and they really want it to be something they don't think about actively. That is a mistake."

Granted, it does take work to manage these accounts and so to that end, there are costs involved that cannot be avoided.

"We're talking about administrative costs, like record keeping, legal trustee services and so you can't fight those,” Urken says.

But he says you can fight back when it comes to other fees.  For instance, when making your selections, he says go with index funds over actively managed funds where a financial advisor is selecting stocks individually. Those tend to be more expensive, upwards of one percent - which sounds small, but keep in mind you're not just losing that one percent.

"You're also losing the potential for compound growth and that's where it really gets you," Urken says.

By contrast, he says index funds charge a fraction of that amount and generally perform just as well.

Another thing to look out for: transaction costs.

Not sure how to find out what fees you're being charged or if there are cheaper options?  You might want to pay a visit to your HR department or go right to the source and call your plan provider."

"There's no cost as you might have with a financial advisor, so why not take advantage of that free advice and get a few bucks back on your retirement," Urken says.