The invisible costs.

For every other important expense in life, an invoice arrives. For investments it does not: costs are taken from the inside, every day, without anyone asking permission — and what cannot be seen cannot be questioned. That is how millions of Italian savers pay, year after year, the largest single expense in their budget without ever knowing the amount.

This guide makes that bill visible, with the method of the series: where the costs hide — the full anatomy of what you pay, the ongoing charges and what they leave out, the performance fees —, what they really cost — the mandatory report almost nobody opens, the inducements that drive Italian distribution, the merciless mathematics of compound interest running backwards — and what to do about it: a complete case over twenty years, the line between a fair cost and a private tax, seven concrete moves and the three ways of paying for advice in Italy.

It is an independent guide, and on this subject the word calls for a declaration: the author practises on the fee-only model. That is why the pages that follow also show the cost of advice itself, not only other people's — and say in which cases the right choice is a different one.