The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias is a fun-to-read introduction to personal finance. If you're only ever going to read one book about personal finance, this one probably should be it. Tobias tells us that, due to the power of compounding, it's important to start saving early. Tobias has a great way to explain compounding to kids. Start with a cookie jar and $1. Tell the kids they can earn 10% daily on their investment in the cookie jar. (Essentially, we squeeze a year's compounding into a day). At the end of the first day, the kid 'earns' 10 cents. At the end of the second day, you pay him/her 11 cents and so on. (to get the next day's value, just multiply the previous day's value by 1.10, using your handheld calculator, or the use cheesy calculator that comes with Windows.) The kid will quickly learn how fast compounding grows money. After 30 days, he'll/she'll have $17.45 in the cookie jar (actually, due to round-off error, you'll have a different amount, but the idea works)