And they churn that stuff over and over and over just to generate fees.

They don't call them sharks for no reason.

of tax deferral was getting eaten up by fees.

this was a small company, and bigger companies have a better ability to lower fees (although they often have more of an incentive to maximize features and don't care enough about lowering fees). so your mileage may vary.

and certainly, if your employer is (still) doing a 401(k) match, it's almost always a good idea to go for the maximum match.

but anything beyond that, you're likely much better off maxing out an ira instead, or at least first. for those of you who feel an ira is harder to administer than a 401(k), well, if you have a 401(k) at work, you could easily enough mimic that within your ira, just to keep things simple -- but with vastly lower fees.

and rolled it into CDs and annuities when I left a company (which I did pretty often) Not the best investments, but if you scatter it around, you do have the ability to uptrade CDs when you get older, so it has been better than the market for me. I have some direct stocks, but no mutual funds, I hate paying other people to manage my money. Especially when I do a better job and I suck at it.

one company took a 1 percent annual fee as well as trade percent.

Also worked for a consulting firm during a bear market and the manager of the 401K managed to lose money - turned out it was a client company was trying to get more work with and used out pension as a gift for them to put in their worst mutual funds. First time I dropped out of a 401K while employed.

and roll it into a self-directed IRA at a bank (CD's) or brokerage firm (Bonds).

Then buy CD's or US Treasuries with that money if those are the more comfortable investments.

There is no reason to liquidate a 401K which creates large tax liabilities.

I did not liquidate the 401K, I just let it lie fallow and put it in the least losing fund. Most of us were losing 50% of our money each year in a bull market. We were probably balancing the books for the brokerage - losses for us , gains for voluntary clients. Could not get out of the limited selections of funds,. I stopped adding money - the tax savings were not enough to balance out giving half the money away each year to the mutual fund.

Knowing our scuzzy boss, there is no question in my mind that he gave them permission to rob us in exchange for contracts with them. Unfortunately, I loved my assignment and did not want to leave that job.

I've just seen a lot of people advocating liquidating a 401(k) to put it into CDs / Government Bonds.

If your no longer with the company, you can roll the money over to any bank (including most community banks and credit unions) if you want to purchase CD's, or to a company like Fidelity / Vanguard (Vanguard is a mutual company owned by its depositors) and purchase treasuries -- without creating the tax liability.

her husband is a financial adviser, but I don't always listen, to my later regret. They want me to take more risk, on the other hand, I do have more cash than they do.

Mutual funds are averaging around 1% to manage your money. How does that compare with the costs of maintaining Pension funds?

what is the average gain per individual for those funds?

I have no 401k or roth ira, I have nothing but a savings account for mad money purchases, a checking account and 4 cds with differing maturity dates and rates.

I'm kinda screwn when it comes to retiring rich.