The 2% Rule for Retirement Savings

This article was posted January 1, 2017.

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I happened to hear Dave Ramsey's radio show a couple of weeks ago when a caller complained about the outrageously high fees his Dave Ramsey-approved Endorsed Local Provider (ELP) was charging him. Dave said he'd have one of his minions look into the complaint, but he assured the listener that "fees don't matter". The important thing is to be investing for retirement, hopefully under the expert guidance of one of the financial firms that pay Dave Ramsey a referral fee. Retire Early last considered Mr. Ramsey back in July 2012 after he told a listener that paying a 5% load is a good deal. (See, The Dave Ramsey Endorsed Local Provider Shaft Detector) Seems little has changed in the interim.

Of course, the idea that "fees don't matter" and "paying a load is a good deal" is completely untrue. As a matter of fact, if you can hold on to most of the 2% per year or so that the average mutual fund and financial advisor skim from their clients annually, you'll only need to save about half as much money for retirement.

For example, The Investment Company Institute 2016 Fact Book - reported that for 2015 the median US equity mutual fund had an annual expense ratio of 1.24%, the median bond fund, 0.85%. Thus a portfolio of 80% stock, 20% bonds would have an annual expense ratio of 1.16%. Add 0.50% for the brokerage fees and trading costs not included in the expense ratio and 1.00% for a financial advisor and that gets you to 2.66%. And that's just for the median, "average" mutual fund. The top 10% of funds with the highest expense ratios were 2.05% for stocks and 1.65% for bonds bleeding an investor with an 80/20 split 1.97% annually and just short of 3.50% when you add the 0.50% brokerage fees and trading costs plus the 1.00% advisor's fee. The table below summarizes these results over a 60-year period. Even after a 40-year period, the low-fee index fund portfolio is more than double the value of a portfolio burdened with the fees and costs of an average mutual fund plus a financial advisor.

Many investors don't realize that a small increase in fees and expenses can mean that a large portion of your net worth is being siphoned off by your financial advisor (i.e., the ELP) and the mutual funds he or she recommends. Even a 1/4 percent annual fee is a lot of money over a 40 to 60 year investing lifetime, and 1% is HUGE.

Retire Early's Interactive Dave Ramsey ELP Shaft Detector allows you to visually see how much of your money your Endorsed Local Provider is taking over time, and compares it to the lowest-cost investment available as a benchmark. Users are often surprised to find that the plan their ELP prepared for them is doing more to fund his or her retirement than their own. For example, the spreadsheet below shows the results for a client paying a 5% load to an Endorsed Local Provider recommending funds with the expense ratio and trading costs of the average mutual find (2.09% per year.) The benchmark is a mix of low-cost index funds (VTHRX) with a total expense ratio and trading costs of 0.20% per annum. The Shaft Detector assumes that the ELP and mutual fund manager invests the excess fees they take from the client in the benchmark portfolio and calculates the value of their portfolio over time (the red bubble on the chart below.) It's not uncommon for people's heads to explode when they see the results.

You can change the figures in blue (i.e., Starting Balance, Annual Contribution, Investment Return, Annual Fees and Trading Costs, and Front-End Load) to run your own numbers.

Investment Fees & Expenses

In addition to the Front-End Load that Dave Ramsey favors, there are a whole host of other expenses and costs that financial advisors or mutual fund managers subract from your account. Most investors are familiar with a mutual fund's expense ratio which covers the management and operation of the fund. But they may not realize that the expense ratio doesn't include brokerage commissions that the fund manager incurs on his or her trades, nor the implicit trading costs (e.g., the bid/asked spread, and the market impact costs of acquiring or disposing of a large position in a stock over a short period of time.) These costs may dwarf the expense ratio for a more actively-traded fund.

Money market funds and short-term bond funds typically buy securities directly from the issuer and hold them to maturity. Thus, they don't incur any of the brokerage fees and trading costs that one finds in the secondary market. For stock funds, most of the securities in the portfolio are purchased in the secondary market, so it's important to find a fund with low turnover to keep these trading costs at a minimum. The table below illustrates the implicit trading costs for stocks of various market capitalization.

The Investment Company Institute reported that for 2015 the average US equity mutual fund had an annual expense raio of 1.24% while the top 10% most expense funds had expense ratios of 2.05% or more. The average bond fund had an expense ratio of 0.85% with the top 10% at 1.65% or more. The table below shows the combined affect of both expense ratio and trading costs for several mutual funds.

Fortunately, for the simple two-asset allocation found in most of the academic studies, you can buy low-cost index funds at minimal cost. The table below shows the full cost (i.e., expense ratio, brokerage commission and bid/asked spread) for a portfolio consisting of an S&P500 index fund and a short-term bond fund.

Like most financial advisers, Dave Ramsey argues his listeners should diversify beyond the domestic large capitalization stocks of the S&P 500 to include Growth, Growth & Income, Aggressive Growth, and International stocks. You can include all these categories by replacing the S&P 500 fund with two Total Stock Market funds at little additional cost. Indeed, Vanguard (and other large mutual fund companies) offer one fund solutions that also take care of rebalancing your allocation. Here's an example for someone about 20 years from their retirement date.

What to conclude from these results?

Fees and costs matter. You can retire much sooner, or save less money for retirement, if you choose investment vehicles with the lowest costs and expenses.

Resources for more information

The Investment Company Institute 2016 Fact Book - reported that for 2015 the median US equity mutual fund had an annual expense raio of 1.24% while the top 10% most expense funds had expense ratios of 2.05% or more. The median bond fund had an expense ratio of 0.85% with the top 10% at 1.65% or more. (See Figure 5.7 in the report.)

The Hidden Costs of Trading -- NYU Stern School of Business

Issues in Assessing Trade Execution Costs, Journal of Financial Markets Bessembinder, H.

Evaluation of the biases in execution cost estimation using trade and quote data Peterson, M., and Sirri, E.