If you're investing in an index fund against the S&P you're more or less going to track the stock market, which (historically) has been at or around 7-11%. This

If you're investing in an index fund against the S&P you're more or less going to track the stock market, which (historically) has been at or around 7-11%. This is not 'unproven' since the S&P 500 (in its current form) was created in 1957. That's a lot of years of data. An index fund (as a rule) has extremely low fees. See Vanguard.com for an example. If you have more than $10k in a Vanguard index fund your fees will be .05%. If you're thinking about how you did this year you're thinking wrong: stocks are a long term investment, not a get rich quick scheme.