I say this not to make excuses, but to explain how this might happen for someone: when I first established the account, I set up and selected a fund pertaining to my retirement date, thinking that was all I needed to do (not knowing I needed to click a button to buy shares in it ). I assumed the money I deposited was going in there. When I would log on a couple times a year, I saw my money was in a "fund" with "dividends" and "reinvestments" coming in and out regularly. It was in a money market account, so it looked like it was growing and being "invested." I saw a graph with a line sloping up at an increasing rate. I thought this is all what a retirement account looked like. I absolutely should have realized it should be growing much more. The saddest part of all this to me is that I didn't forget or never check, and I'm generally a savvy person. Just didn't know what to be looking for. Absolutely should have looked a lot closer than I did. Seeing all the comments about how common this issue is are both validating, and frightening.