What are your fees really costing you?

A fee you pay every year doesn’t just cost you that year. It compounds against a balance you hoped would grow. Move the sliders to see what a recurring fee quietly takes, both from the income you can live on and from the wealth you leave behind.

Your numbers

Nothing here is stored or sent anywhere. Adjust the assumptions to match your own situation.

Money invested $1,000,000

Your current all-in fee 1.00%

All-in means the advisor fee plus the fees inside the funds. For an advisor-managed, actively invested account this often runs near 1.5%. If you are not sure, 1% is a conservative place to start.

Compared to a lower-cost option 0.10%

Illustrative only. This isolates what the recurring fee itself costs over time. It is not a recommendation to buy or sell any product, fund, or strategy.

Assumed average return 8.0%

A hypothetical, steady return used only for the growth view below. Real markets do not move in a straight line. This is not a projection or a guarantee.

Years 30

If you are living on this money

How much income can you safely draw for life, before and after the fee?

Lower-cost: yearly income

$40,000

at a 3.98% sustainable rate

Your fee: yearly income

$35,600

at a 3.56% sustainable rate

If you are growing this money

After the same number of years, what is left after the fee takes its cut?

Lower-cost: ending value

$6,800,000

grows untouched

Lost to the fee

$1,400,000

about 21% of the total

Lower-cost path Your-fee path Taken by fees

Worth knowing. Both views above are generous to the fee. They assume the managed money simply keeps pace with the market before costs. Over the 20 years through 2025, about nine in ten actively managed U.S. stock funds (roughly 92%) failed to keep pace with the index they are measured against. So a fair question is this: if you are paying to beat the market, and the odds say you are not beating the market, what is the fee buying? (Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices SPIVA U.S. Scorecard, 20-year figure through year-end 2025.)

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Want a second set of eyes on what you’re paying?

Seeing the number is the first step. Figuring out what to do about it is a conversation. That’s exactly what the Retirement Income Blueprint Call is for. Short, free, no pressure.

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Sources & assumptions

Income view. Based on a 4.03% start-of-year sustainable withdrawal rate (the worst-case historical “SAFEMAX”) and Wade Pfau’s finding that roughly 1% of annual cost or underperformance lowers the sustainable rate by about 0.47 percentage points. The relationship here is applied as a simple straight line for illustration. This view does not use the return assumption above, because sustainable-withdrawal research already accounts for market behavior. Source: Pfau, W. (2026), Retirement Planning Guidebook, 3rd ed.

Growth view. The fee is applied to the balance each year, after growth. Returns are assumed steady, which never happens in real life, so treat the lines as illustration, not prediction.

Fund underperformance. S&P Dow Jones Indices SPIVA scorecards. Specific figures change with each report and should be checked against the latest edition before being relied upon.

This tool is provided by KJ Financial for educational purposes only. It shows hypothetical, illustrative results based on simplified assumptions and does not reflect any specific account, product, or investment. It is not investment, tax, or legal advice, is not a projection or guarantee of any outcome, and does not recommend any specific security, fund, or strategy. Fees, returns, and sustainable withdrawal rates vary widely and change over time. Kurt Jackson is licensed for life and health insurance and does not provide securities or investment advisory services. Please consult a qualified professional about your own situation before making any decision.

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