KIDS & FINANCES

Children are notorious spenders,but they're also getting better atputting money away. According to astudy by Teenage Research Unlimited,young people aged 12 to 19made cash registers ring to the tuneof $170 billion last year, but also putsome money into savings. Morethan one third of those teens saidthey had cash in stocks, bonds,mutual funds, or CDs (the kind youbuy at a bank). Even the younger set(aged 4 to 12) managed to put awayabout $4 billion of their $27-billionannual income. Among the manyWeb sites aimed at young investorsare Liberty Financial's Young-Investor (www.younginvestor.com),the Institute for Consumer FinancialEducation (www.icfe.info),and Ernst & Young's Moneyopolis(www.moneyopolis.com). Today'sphysician-parents should encouragetheir children's saving habits andfinancial education.