Standard & Poors is a highly respected financial company that rates the financial strength of companies. Most recently, S & P rated mutual fund companies in nine different categories over a 10-year-period. The company was trying to find out if it was worth paying extra money to be in a high-cost mutual fund. Will you get more for your money if you pay more? When you buy a mutual fund, you’ll pay a management fee. It’s what you pay throughout the year for someone to handle your accounts. But an ultra low cost fund will charge you one-fifth of one percent per year. A typical fund will charge about eight times more than that. So, what did S&P find out? In eight out of nine categories, the advantage of being in a low cost fund was overwhelming. The average low cost fund outperformed the typical fund by an average of 20 percent over that 10-year period. In one category - small cap funds – the low cost fund outperformed the other fund by 37.5 percent. So, it’s not even close. Buying funds that have the lowest costs will make you the most amount of money over time. Three-quarters of money going into mutual funds this year has been put into low cost operators. The top three low-cost providers are Vanguard, Fidelity and American Funds. Why does this matter? Clark believes we face half a generation of very low returns from the stock market. It’s likely that our real return could be somewhere around five percent. So, if you’re paying high cost fees, that’s coming right out of your return. We’re in an era where you’re going to have to save more than you’re earning. You also need to be diversified in your investments, and try to have as little debt as possible. It gives you control or freedom.