"I want to be a defensive investor, a know-nothing investor, but the more I think about things, the more I need to know and then I'm not taking a walk or making a pot, or sewing something. Trying to get enough knowledge is like reaching for the pencil that keeps rolling a little further out of reach every time you touch it."

Elizabeth,

Love that metaphor about reaching for a pencil, and my apologies that I didn't read your post more carefully.

If you're wanting to be walkin', sewin', and thowin' pots instead of grubbing for money, then you're what my generation would call --endearingly-- a 'granola mama', and --old Berkeley hippie that I still am-- I know where you're coming from. You're 'Silvia" from Pirsig's, 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. But that faucet dripping in her kitchen isn't going to fix itself, nor is the problem of managing your money and growing it at least enough to keep up with inflation.

So here's a bit of fortune-cookie wisdom taken from a sign hanging on my dentist's wall. "You don't have to floss all of your teeth. Just the ones you want to keep." Same-same with your dollars that every day are losing a bit of their purchasing-power, because that suits them who really do run the world.

So let me break the rule I laid out in my previous reply and recommend that you get hold of a copy of Ben Graham's "The Intelligent Investor". Your library should have a copy or be able to borrow it thru ILL, or just listen to the audiobook version (available on YouTube) while you sew or throw a pot. What you want to take away from the book is a sense of how investing can be just an extension of the sort of comparison shopping you're already familiar with. If you can buy bell peppers and broccoli, you can buy stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. (The process is the same, which is a post for another time. LOL)

Lastly, let me offer yet another bit of folk wisdom, this time from the Zen tradition. "The obstacle is the path."

Charlie