Jonny,

I am often questioning myself as you are about various mutual funds.

With an MER of 2.5%, I'm guessing it might be a front load or back load fund.In these conditions your fee to get out might be a little higher. Look at some of the largest mutual funds in Canada that concentrate on equities or value funds. In the prospectus, you will usually find the top 25 holdings. I'm sure that in those holdings you will find at least 5 or 6 companies that most drippers drip (ex: BNS, BMO, CM, ENB, TRP, MFC etc.)

Now if you reinvest the dividends (free of charge except for a stamp), and you don't pay an annual MER of 2.5%, in the long haul you will be in the plus column.

Worst case scenario, buy a low fee index etf and the fees are usually quite a bit lower. The 2.5% fee is only worth it when a fund manager performs above indexes. It is known fact that more than 60% of high fee mutual funds don't outperform the TSX index.

I still carry some mutual funds but am feeling more and more that I need to take personal action to manage my portfolio myself.