Fees: 1% a year, and a quarter is missing at the end

One percent a year. That's what an ordinary fund takes, sold at the bank counter.

One percent. Over a single year, it's invisible.

You invest ten thousand euros. They earn you seven hundred euros.

A hundred of it gets taken. You won't even see it leave.

Now let thirty years go by.

With no fees, your ten thousand euros become seventy-six thousand.

With one percent in fees a year, how much do you think is left?

About fifty-seven thousand four hundred.

Eighteen thousand six hundred and eighty-eight euros are missing.

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That's almost a quarter of everything you would have had.

You took all the risk. The fund took a quarter of the gain.

Why so expensive for so little? Because a fee compounds, exactly like interest.

Every euro taken is a euro that will never earn anything again.

And it comes back every year, on a growing balance.

A broad index fund costs about two tenths of a percent. Five times less.

Same place, thirty years later: almost seventy-two thousand euros, instead of fifty-seven thousand.

About fourteen thousand five hundred euros apart, for exactly the same investment.

Two people, the same market, the same time, the same drops.

The only difference: one line in a document nobody reads.

Fees are the one thing in finance you know in advance.

Nobody will ever guarantee the return. The cost is written in black and white.

So it's the only lever you really hold. Use it.