A GOOD GRASP OF compounding is fundamental to managing money. Without an understanding of the way money grows and shrinks over time, folks can’t fully appreciate the value of starting to save when they’re young, the damage done by large investment losses or the true cost of carrying credit-card debt.
Yet I fear compounding isn’t well understood. This has dawned on me over the past month, as I’ve been teaching an undergraduate course on personal finance.

I LOVE CORRESPONDING with readers, because I find out what’s on ordinary investors’ minds and hence what might make for a good article. And, occasionally, I learn something unexpected.
This week’s lesson: The potential return on EE savings bonds is much higher than I thought. If you look on TreasuryDirect.gov, you’ll learn that the current interest rate is a meager 0.3%. After 20 years, that would give you a cumulative total return of just 6.2%.