NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A financial adviser recommended that I put $11,000 into a portfolio of four mutual funds: a large-cap growth fund, a small-cap value fund, an international stock fund and an intermediate-term bond fund. Besides the fact that they are load funds, I'm concerned that the expense ratios are a little steep. Should I be concerned about this?

-- Christian Chong, Flushing, New York

I think it always makes sense to be concerned about the advice you get about how to invest your money. Not that I recommend investors pace the floor with a knot of anxiety in their stomach every time they deal with a financial adviser.

But I do think it's a good idea to think about the advice you get and evaluate it on your own, just to make sure that you're not getting ripped off or dealing with someone advocating a whacky strategy.

On the face of it, it at least appears your adviser has gotten you off to the right start -- that is, your adviser has split your eleven grand among several different asset classes -- large- and small-cap, international equity and bonds.

So if nothing else, you would be getting the benefits of diversification, which I think is important. Of course, being properly diversified isn't just a matter of owning different asset classes. There's also the question of how much to put in each of those classes.

That's a tougher question to answer -- actually, impossible for me to answer in this case, since I know nothing of your investment goals and risk tolerance. But if you go to our Asset Allocator and fill out our short interactive quiz, you can get a sense of what we here at CNN/Money consider a reasonable allocation.

You don't have to track our recommendation exactly. But if your mix is radically different, I'd sure want an explanation from the adviser.

Now, you mention that your funds are "load" funds -- that is, you're paying some sort of sales commission to the adviser. If you've been a reader of this column, then you know I'm a big advocate of people doing their own research and picking their own funds.

That assumes, however, that you're comfortable doing this, and willing to put in the time and effort. If you're instead going to enlist the help of an adviser, then you'll have to pay for that adviser's time and effort in some way. It could be through a flat fee or hourly charge.

But when a small sum is being invested -- and $11,000 qualifies as a small sum in this context -- the more usual route is to pay an adviser via some type of fund sales commission. That could be in the form of an upfront load in which a certain percentage of your investment, say, 5.75 percent, goes toward the sales commission and the remainder goes into the fund.

Or, the arrangement could involve a "back end" load of some sort. In such a case, all your money would go into the fund, but if you withdraw your money early one -- generally within the first five or six years -- a portion of the proceeds would go back to the adviser instead of into your pocket. What's more, back-load arrangements have higher ongoing annual expenses than a fund with an upfront load.

I bring this up not to get side tracked on the issue of fund sales charges. Rather, I mention it so that you're careful when you compare the level of ongoing expenses in your funds versus those of other funds so that you're comparing apples to apples -- that is, the expenses in an upfront load fund vs. other funds with upfront loads, or expenses in back-end loaded funds vs. other back-end load funds.

Only then can you get an accurate idea of whether your funds' expenses are elevated. If you're unfamiliar with terms like front- and back-end load, I suggest you check out our MONEY 101 lesson on fund investing. After doing that, you can go to Morningstar's Fund Screener where, by screening for funds of the same load and category type as yours, you can get a feel for how your funds' expenses stack up.

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Finally, there's absolutely nothing wrong with going back to the adviser, laying out your doubts and then asking for a clear explanation of why the adviser is recommending these specific funds vs. the thousands of others he or she could have chosen. If you don't like the answer you get, there are just as many advisers out there as funds, so you have the choice of moving on to another adviser too.

Of course, after checking out our Asset Allocator tool, reading our Money 101 lesson and clicking around the Morningstar site, you may find that it's just as easy to research your fund choices yourself, buy no-load funds and invest the money that would have gone to the adviser.

Walter Updegrave is a senior editor at MONEY Magazine and is the author of "We're Not in Kansas Anymore: Strategies for Retiring Rich in a Totally Changed World." He also answers viewers' questions on CNNfn's Money & Markets at 4:40 PM on Mondays.