Investment fees: Ignore them at your peril

Would you ever think of paying 25 or even 33 percent of your investment gains to a portfolio manager? Probably not.

But in reality, people buying taxable bond funds do just that -- because Treasury yields are just three or four percent and the average fund charges fees of slightly more than one percent, according to Morningstar. The highest bond fund management fee is a whopping 2.98 percent.