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If you want to be mildly outraged, compare your 401k program's S&P 500 tracking fund's fees with Vanguard's. Depending on your company, it can be more than 20x the cost, for a fund that requires minimal oversight.

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My coworker at an old job did exactly that: found a matching Vanguard fund with nearly identical funds to our 401K. It had 1/6th the fees and that company lost a significant amount of my money. The tax benefits of the higher tax free cap for 401K's versus just having an IRA were definitely not made up for by how poorly my 401K's investments went.

tl;dr: open an IRA, buy Vanguard

I would also add: save more. Yes, reducing fees is important, but equally important is simply increasing the amount you put away.

With the caveat that if your job does any 401k matching, you should take advantage of it. Automatic 100% return is hard to beat.

(And then if you switch jobs, roll it over into a Vanguard IRA.)

Vanguard offers 401ks and Simple IRAs for companies to make available to their employees. Fidelity and Schwab also have low cost plans.

If your company has you in a crappy retirement ask them to change!

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