YOU HAVE FOUND OUR OLD WEB SITE. BE SURE TO CHECK OUT OUR NEW AND IMPROVED SITE!     Fees and How They Affect Your 403(b) Expenses have a direct and dramatic impact on your earnings. While you can't control the market you can control how much you pay for your investments. The difference of just a few extra percentage points in fees may seem minimal, but over time this seemingly minimal difference can steadily eat into your overall earnings, costing you thousands of dollars. Below is a list of fees that can affect your 403(b) returns, and a chart demonstrating how fees steadily eat away at your 403(b).     403(b) Fees 12b-1 Fee This charge generally allows distributors to compensate broker/dealers for selling their funds, with a payment to the representative who sold the fund. It also can be a charge to cover marketing and distribution costs of the investment.   Custodial Fee The charge for safekeeping or physically holding the securities in the fund.   Expense Deductions Charges for investment management, administration and distribution services.   Management Fee Also called the investment advisory fee, this represents the company's cost for managing the money in the fund.   Mortality and Expense Fee (M&E) This applies to some types of annuities and covers insurance related costs.   Transfer Fee This is an amount charged by a fund to transfer either within the fund family or to another company.   Wrap Account Fee Charged by some types of funds for fund management, this is an annual percentage of the investor's assets in the account.   Withdrawal Charge (a.k.a. Surrender Charge) A fee charged by some annuities and funds when an investor takes money out of his or her account.   How Fees Impact Return Value after 35 years, assuming $250 contributed monthly with an 8% average annual return (source: Meridian Wealth Management):     Home | Disclaimer | © 2001-2007 bWise Guys, LLC. All rights reserved.				Related Information Mutual Fund Fee Calculator The Truth About 12b-1 Fees Retirement Plan Fees Easy-to-read information from US Department of Labor.