Best low cost investment choices for Vanguard and Fidelity 401k plans

It is always wise to know where your hard earned money is being invested. This holds true even for the money in your 401K accounts. Yes, you can pick and choose how the money in your 401K is invested. This is extremely important because if you dont make an explicit choice, more than likely your money will end up being invested in a plan that has a higher maintenance fees. If you have an account with Fidelity for your 401K, consider the following three investment options that have the lowest maintenance cost as well as a respectable growth rate. In my opinion, the following are the best low cost 401K investment funds for Fidelity with a decently high growth rate.

Plan	Fee
Spartan® 500 Index Fund - Institutional Class (FXSIX)	0.05%
Spartan® Extended Market Index Fund - Fidelity Advantage Class(FSEVX)	0.07%
Spartan® Long-Term Treasury Bond Index Fund - Fidelity Advantage Class(FLBAX)	0.1%

In the same way, I believe that the following are the best low cost 401K investment funds for Vanguard with a decently high growth rate.

Plan	Fee
Vanguard Institutional Index Fund Institutional Shares (VINIX)	0.04%
Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund Institutional Shares (VIEIX)	0.07%

Note: The fees listed above are at the time of writing. Please click on the links to see the fee in case it has changed. Let me know in the comments and I will gladly update the article as well. For all means and purposes, do your own research by comparing various plans. But if your are goals are similar to mine, which is to reduce costs on money that I don't actively manage, you might find the above choices really helpful.

So why is lowering your costs important? A lower cost means that more of your money gets to grow. Take a look at the following table which compares three hypothetical plans, each with a different maintenance fee% per year. The actual cost in $ amount is shown in the corresponding columns. That's what you pay Fidelity / Vanguard for managing your money in each of those plans.

Plan	Fee%	Fee per $1000/year	Fee $10,000/year	Fee per $100,000 per year
Plan A	0.05	$0.50	$5	$50
Plan B	0.8	$8.0	$80	$800
Plan C	1.5	$15	$150	$1500

As you can see from the above, the larger your 401K(aka. nest egg), the more you pay for maintenance. Hopefully, like me, you have heard of the saying,

A penny saved is a penny earned.

So based on the above table, unless the growth of plan C is not stellar enough to make up for its high maintenance fee, I would find it quite difficult to justify paying a higher more to keep my money invested in it. Hopefully this article gave you some direction towards achieving your investment goals. If you are aware of similar or better plans, please share it in the comments for our readers.