<prompt> Human: Married, no kids, no 401K...nothing. I want to invest about 1000 USDmonth. I am very wary of stocks, and havent gotten into it. But I think I am being naïve by totally ignoring it. I have saved up enough to survive at least 6 months, if not more.My mom, who lives in India, is totally into the Indian share market, and as a cautious approach, I intend to give her about 100-200 per month to invest in the Indian stock market. That leaves me with about 800 to invest here, in the US. I feel like there are some good companies out there that I should buy their stocks and forget about it. But how do I go about doing it? What other options exist other than stocks that could have lower yield, but a lower risk. How do I actually put rubber to the road? Which site do I use to invest? I read this article on investment, and I was intrigued. How does one go about doing what the author suggests at the end of the article? Which site should I go to invest in that stock?  <response>: Never buy individual stocks - only total market index funds. And own plenty of fixed income bondsCDs to mitigate the stock risk. 