* You’ll still look to Vanguard if you have $100,000 or more. On accounts that size, it charges just 0.07 percent. You also get that low fee if you have at least $50,000 in a fund, have held it for at least 10 years, and are registered for online access to your accounts.

* A stock’s capitalization is its market price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. Put another way, it’s the value the market puts on the company as a whole at a given point in time.

* The 20 top performers in Standard & Poor’s 500 index for 1957–2003, from The Future for Investors by Jeremy Siegel: Altria (formerly Philip Morris), Abbot Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Tootsie Roll Industries, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Merck, PepsiCo, Colgate-Palmolive, Crane, H.J. Heinz, Wrigley, Fortune Brands, Kroger, Schering-Plough, Procter & Gamble, Hershey Foods, Wyeth, Royal Dutch Petroleum, and General Mills. These aren’t investment recommendations; some companies on this list have had troubles too. But notice that there’s not a tech stock in the bunch. Each generation’s tech stocks got blown away by something new.

* In 2010, long-term capital gains are tax free in the 10 percent and 15 percent tax brackets. This may or may not be extended into later years, so check.

* A top financial planner who read this chapter commented, “Mostly useless, Jane! Laymen can’t pick stocks. Their choices wind up being all emotion.” He’s right, but you’ll have to learn that yourself.