Boston Gal's Open Wallet

“Now is the time to invest,’’ said Caparell, who has picked up hours working at his girlfriend’s Roslindale flower shop. “But I’m more concerned about taking care of bills than with stocks.’’

Even with the stock market roaring back - the Dow Jones industrial average rose nearly 133 points yesterday, for instance, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up more than 60 percent since March - ordinary investors are not reaping the benefits of the rally. By choice or necessity, they are sitting on the sidelines, unable to put money back into their retirement funds because they lost their jobs or face other economic troubles. Others are still gun-shy about the stock market and instead are pouring money into more con servative bond funds.

The result: Investors have withdrawn an estimated $27.6 billion from US stock funds and put about $329.5 billion into bonds this year, according to the Investment Company Institute, which tracks mutual fund investments.

It can be a cruel twist of fortune: The people who are most hurt in the recession are the people who are least able to benefit from a rising stock market. Meanwhile, people who have the financial means can take advantage of a fundamental principle of investing: buy when stocks are low and sell when they are high.

The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery.

Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif.

These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market. Economists from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. said Monday they didn't expect U.S. home prices to hit bottom until early 2011, citing the prospect of oversupply.

Home prices have fallen so far that 5.3 million U.S. households are tied to mortgages that are at least 20% higher than their home's value, the First American report said. More than 520,000 of these borrowers have received a notice of default, according to First American.

Most U.S. homeowners still have some equity, and nearly 24 million owner-occupied homes don't have any mortgage, according to the Census Bureau.

Sales at That's My Room have slowed to $3,000 to $5,000 a month. The Levys haven't taken a paycheck home since the store opened a year and a half ago.

The Levys are in their 30s and have no children. Before opening That's My Room, Jon had a job in software sales, and Aimee was a physical therapist.

"We kind of wanted to do something together," says Aimee Levy. "He's my best friend, and we actually work really well together — and I just thought, why not?"

Soon after the store opened, the recession hit.

Keeping the company going has taken hard work, sacrifice and an effusive optimism that you'd find only in a couple who drive a pink bunny van with a furry inside to promote the store.

Bed sales are the couple's bread and butter, but the Levys have endured monthlong stretches without any. Over the winter, the couple worked at bars to make ends meet.

"Soon, we were pushing about 80 to 90 hours of work a week," says Jon Levy. His wife says that it took a toll on their relationship.

Then the couple fell behind on making their home mortgage payments. But they wanted to keep the store, so Aimee Levy returned to work as a physical therapist.