21 ways to stomach a sour market

Okay, so you're convinced that the genius move is to suck it up, buy beat-up financials or blue chips and ride them back up. But how are you going to feel if you go all in just before the Dow sinks another 1,000 points?

If you'd rather not find out, there's a chicken way to be gutsy: Enroll in an automatic investing program through a mutual fund or a brokerage. You have to be brave only once - when you sign up - and after that the machinery takes over, steadily investing a few hundred or thousand at a time. Setting up the plan is a matter of a phone call or a few clicks on your financial institution's Web site.

One caveat: The commissions on stocks or exchange-traded funds will eat up small investments, so stick with no-load mutual funds like T. Rowe Price Blue-Chip Growth (800-638-5660, troweprice.com). This Money 70 fund will let you tiptoe into battered blue chips in increments of as little as $50 a month.

NEXT: Rebalance your portfolio