Hi,

My wife and I just started investing a few weeks ago ourselves. We have opened 2 funds, one a money market to serve as a cash reserve; the other an index 500 fund.

We went through the prospectuses of several companies that looked interesting to us, looked at the charges, and settled (so far) on one company.

Janus is one of those companies I have looked very seriously at, and we are planning to invest with them as well when we get our money market account where we want it.

You might want to look at Strong Funds, located at
http://www.estrong.com

We're very pleased with them so far; in fact, I made a Web transaction just today. You can start with just $50/month with their AIP (Automatic Investment Plan), and not even start out with a minimum investment when you send in the paperwork.

Look definitely at an Index 500 fund. Strong has one available. Yahoo's Mutual Funds board will help:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SINEX&d=1ys

Here's an overview of the fund's profile as well:
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/s/sinex.html

Hope this info helps you in your search.

Mike