[JKnight]

I would talk to someone about the IRA before you go too far in thinking that there are "fees" issues associated with it. Most discount brokers will set you up an IRA for free and there are no account maintenance charges. You'll pay some amount in commissions whenever you trade, but there are no annual fees for your average rollover IRA (I'm sure there are exceptions to this where someone is charging account fees, but there are plenty that don't).

In fact, your company's current 401k with its' target date funds will actually cost you more than holding stocks in an IRA. For example, look at the OER (Operating Expense Ratio) on the target date funds you're holding in your 401k. Most likely, the OER is somewhere in the range of 0.60%-1.50%. That means that the returns for each fund are being reduced by the OER (fee the fund company charges to pay the portfolio managers, keep the lights on, etc.) with whatever's leftover being reflected as an increase in the fund's price (aka your return for the year).

That OER is being taken every year, so ~1.00% per year. That's a fee! There is no such thing happening in an IRA, well, unless you buy mutual funds in it. So, yeah, you'll pay some amount in commissions to buy your stocks (or whatever you choose) in the IRA, but you shouldn't have to pay anything additional on an annual basis. You can even buy ETFs in the IRA and sometimes that can be done commission free.