So with Breadwallet I will be holding my own private keys, which means if my phone dies then my Bitcoin is gone. But if I hold my own keys, then I get free coins if there's a fork in the blockchain? How does that work?

And with Blockchain, I do not hold my own keys, which means if my computer dies I do not lose my coins, but I do not get free coins if there's a fork. If I'm only holding a few hundred dollars at a time, is not getting free coins going to be a serious amount of money?

Is this stuff really as complicated as it seems?