I am considering buying a mutual fund for the long term, five or 10 years, but I've never done it before except through my pension plan at work. With the stock market falling the way it is, is this a good time to invest? Or should I give it a little time to see if things will go down even further?

My grandparents are frugal people who own their home and meet their expenses quite well with their Social Security income. They have about $900,000 in assets, and they will soon be forced to take distributions of about $50,000 a year from their IRAs. They were not comfortable with the very large immediate tax bite from converting their traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs. They are vexed more by the taxes they will have to pay than by the jittery equity markets. What should they do with the unnecessary income from these distributions? And how should they allocate their assets?

I’m 32 years old and my wife is 30. We weren’t able to start saving seriously until a year and a half ago, but at that time we started saving aggressively. Yet we’ve lost almost half ($10,000) of our portfolio in stocks and stock funds. I’ve been told that I can afford to take high risks because I have lots of time to catch up. But I’m very frustrated that the money I have lost, if compounded to retirement age, would be very significant. I’m starting to feel like I’m falling behind.

We are still saving, about $15,000 a year, and I am tempted to go after today's "bargain" prices and employ a buy-and-hold strategy. But I'm not ready to stomach another substantial loss. I'm tired of learning from my mistakes, and I'm now willing to be called an investing "sissy" and invest in bonds.

Can you give me a plan for becoming financially independent in 23 years? Is that a realistic plan?

Some of the material on your Web site is over my head, though much of it I find very informative. I want to invest $10,000 in the next week during the current market low. I’m inclined to put my money into a single no-load aggressive growth fund that is poised to take advantage of current technology sector lows and make hefty profits over the next few years.

In your columns you have favorably mentioned Vanguard STAR and PBHG Large Cap Growth funds. I am willing to assume the risk of the PBHG fund to get a strong start. I plan to diversify and moderate the risk within three years. Will the PBHG fund take the best advantage of the current dip in technology stock prices? Is there another fund you can recommend that is better? Or do you think I should consider another strategy?

I have just started looking with my mother at funds she might invest in when she retires in about three years. She is afraid of losing money but wants to earn more interest than she gets in her bank’s checking account. The TIAA-CREF BondPlus Fund looks good to me. What do you think?

I want to invest in mutual funds that own U.S. stocks, but as a citizen of Belgium I find it's very hard to do that. Are there mutual funds in which anybody can invest without geographic restrictions.