This is why checking the fees of the products you buy when you invest is so important. I'm lucky enough to have index fund options at 0.04% and bond fund option

This is why checking the fees of the products you buy when you invest is so important. I'm lucky enough to have index fund options at 0.04% and bond fund options at 0.07% in my 401k. That doesn't matter if you don't use them though! I work with some pretty smart people that used to put their 401ks in target funds with fees in excess of 2.0% until I sat them down and worked out the math with them. If you want to quickly eyeball how your 401k stacks up, Brightscope (http://www.brightscope.com/ http://www.brightscope.com/) is pretty useful.