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The cost of fees

What fees really cost you

You never pay a fee on a receipt: it is quietly deducted from your return, year after year. It is the silent partner in your portfolio. Put a number on it.

Final gap between the two portfolios
Index portfolio · final value
Expensive fund · final value
Extra paid in fees
Total contributed

The two paths, year by year

Index fund (low cost) Expensive fund
YearIndex fund (€)Expensive fund (€)Difference (€)% less wealth

Deterministic model: each portfolio's net return is the gross market return minus its expense ratio (index fund ≈ gross − 0.15 %; expensive fund ≈ gross − 2.40 %). With the default values it reproduces, approximately, the example from the book: 300 €/month for 25 years, with the 2.25-point fee gap that separates an index fund from a typical bank fund, comes to roughly 64,000 € of final difference. The full cost chain of an index fund should rarely exceed 0.5 % a year. Tax is not included; compare with the Spanish capital gains calculator (in Spanish).