Pay less; Earn more: Save 63% on fees Buy low-cost mutual funds averaging 10-12%. Accumulate $1,000,000 in 35 years. Use a tax-FREE account-Save 30% on income taxes. Avoid mutual fund fees taking 63% of your money. Only 2.5% of the Street's "professionals," who hand-pick a bunch of stocks (a mutual fund), are successful over time. Your funds with "that little 2 percent fee will erode 63 percent of what you would have had," according to John Bogle. Accumulating wealth requires that you avoid high fees, commissions, loads and taxes-the Wealth Killers. If your high-fee 401k has no match, you may double your nest egg by using low-fee tax-FREE account. We avoid fees by buying ONLY the financial services we need at a discount. We avoid state and federal taxes by using an IRS-approved tax-FREE account. We reinvest ALL our earnings. We accumulate $1,000,000 by leveraging the Miracle of Compounding over time. This is the strategy Warren Buffett recommends: "A very low-cost index is going to beat a majority of the amateur-managed money or professionally-managed money." Tax-FREE low-cost growth can provide more to spend for the rest of our lives. We can earn 10-12% a year: http: //www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm. We save up to 63% on fund costs and 30% on taxes. Someone must pay off the three wars, tax cuts and bank bailouts since 1990. The wealthy have learned how to avoid taxes. They stay wealthy by paying lower tax rates than we do. Warren Buffett pays only 17% total tax, Mitt Romney only 14%, and John Kerry only 13%. Most of us pay 32.9%. Most corporations pay under 20%. The wealthy stay wealthy by paying lower fees, charges and commissions. Their fee schedule is 0.01-0.05% not 1.5-3%. They buy only what they need so their costs-commissions, fees, etc. are less. They don't use middlepeople because they know product providers only use their firms' high-cost products. Studies show:
About the Author: Dan Keppel has been helping people find financial services that fit their lifestyles since working in a securities firm, an insurer, two banks and his own "money coach" service. His book, The Insiders' Guides to Buying Discount Financial Services: Buy Direct and Save $3,000 Every Year, shows you how, what and where to buy financial products like industry insiders do-directly from the highest rated companies for less. He edits TheInsidersGuides.com and was an adjunct at a local college. He lives in Montclair, NJ with his wife, daughter and two cats, Anu and Katze.