[masraum]

When it comes to advisers, they have to get paid by someone. Also, not all of them have a fiduciary responsibility to do what is in your best interest. So if they get commissions from xyz, and they can convince you to invest in xyz, then that to me is not in my best interest. I want an adviser who has a responsibility to do what is in me and my money's best interest. I suspect that would mean that I'm going to have to pay them.

I am not saying that all non-fee advisers are crooked or going to steer me in a direction that is bad for me just to line their pockets, but I have little to no recourse if they do and finding the right one would probably be difficult.

I'd stick with an adviser that I have to pay.

I like indexed funds, not active funds where some expert thinks he knows how to beat the market. Even if the "market" made 10% and the active investor made 11.5 or 12% over time, that extra return would probably be completely consumed by the fees paid to that expert to beat the market. I'd rather diversify into multiple indexed funds or ETFs. IE, domestic large cap growth, dom large cap value, dom small cap growth and dom small cap value. Then do the same thing large and small growth and value for international.

The fees on good index funds will probably run .05-.2% while the fees on the active funds will probably run 1-3.5%. Yeah, that's a BIG difference, especially over time and large sums.