I think one of the growing trends that we are going to see in years to come is people finally revolting against the fees that they are charged by financial advisors.  More and more books are coming out on the topic, more and more is being said about it on radio and TV shows and basically we are all enriching financial advisors to achieve very little.  They don’t partake in your losses when they guide you into losses, but when you make a profit they want a healthy slice of that.  

A variety of products from retirement annuities to Unit Trusts and various other policies simply allow huge slices of the funds to be paid to advisors – in most cases for little or no advice and in most cases they don’t beat the market and they certainly don’t beat the market year after year.  People are going to start showing much more interest in low cost Index funds in future and the bottom line is whatever financial product you get, you should try and ensure that the costs that you are paying are not more than 1,25% at most.  3% may not sound like a lot to most people, but when you think that those fees are charged annually, and that same R10 000,00 of yours is getting a R300,00 charge every single year for the rest of your life until you retire, then you will start to realise what the actual impact is.  Of course, you would not be planning to retire on R10 000,00, so whether it is R100 000,00 or R200 000,00 or whatever amounts you have saved, when you start applying 3% against that money instead of 1,25% or less, you start giving away substantial sums of your money every year to some shiny young stockbroker, or “investment advisor” who is driving his Ferrari on the way home regardless of whether he made any money for your portfolio or not.