Michael Berman wasn't much interested when his grandfather and stockbroker Joe Moskowitz gave him a portfolio of stocks as a child.

"I remember him telling me the value of a nickel when I was 4 or 5 years old," says Mr. Berman, now a 47-year-old engineer looking for steady employment after earning an M.B.A. from Duquesne University.

Older and wiser -- the Cranberry resident says his 40-stock portfolio has helped him and his family survive a series of layoffs -- Mr. Berman wants his 8-year-old daughter Ashley to learn the importance of saving a lot sooner than he did. So, two times a week, father and daughter sit down in front of Bloomberg television or CNBC to see how Ashley's five-stock portfolio is performing.

"We really need to be highlighting the importance of saving because I don't know if Ashley's going to have Social Security," says Mr. Berman. "If they don't have a history of saving when they hit the age of 16, it's just going to be spend, spend, spend."

Mr. Berman sold his grandfather's bequest to purchase his first home. By then, he had become interested in stocks. He joined the National Association of Investors Corp., which helps individuals learn how to invest wisely. The organization, which recently changed its name to BetterInvesting, supplies stock-picking guidelines that are the mainstay of its 199,000 individual and 18,000 investment club members.

He helped form investment clubs at two of the places he worked, including Cutler-Hammer and Marconi, only to see them fall apart when he was laid off. He also lost jobs at Medrad, Tollgrade Communications and Invensys, enough to earn him the red badge of restructuring.

"I'm more cautious with my stocks than I am with my livelihood," Mr. Berman jokes.

He's used his real estate license and a stint managing an H&R Block office to earn a living. Meanwhile, he remained active with investing. When his neighborhood investment club met, Ashley was involved, but not as a certified financial analyst.

"I got to baby sit the children. We got to trash the basement," she answers, pausing long enough to stop squirming on the living room couch.

Nearby is Ashley's blue plastic Fisher Price safe, stuffed to the gills with coins and a solitary $5 bill. Her $4,100 portfolio of stocks started with a check from a family friend, who wanted Mr. Berman to buy his newborn daughter one share of Walt Disney Co.

"I dragged my feet on it long enough and I was able to buy two shares for the same price," says Mr. Berman, who says he has about a dozen accounts with T.D. Waterhouse.

Subsequent stocks were purchased with her savings. Ashley is required to save half of the money she receives for birthdays and Christmases, although her father says she regularly saves more than required. The stocks were selected based on Ashley's habits as a consumer: gum-maker William Wrigley Jr., Hershey -- "That was one of the first words she learned how to spell," says her father -- Mattel and Tootsie Roll Industries.

Ashley, a third grader at Rowan Elementary School in the Seneca Valley school district, picked the last stock on her own after considering two others: cereal maker General Mills (she's cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs) and Kraft Foods (ditto for macaroni and cheese.) After going over Value Line and Standard & Poor's reports with her father, Ashley rejected his recommendation to buy General Mills and bit on Tootsie Roll.

"I'm not sure it all sunk in, but it's a start," Mr. Berman says of the father-to-daughter lectures. "I'm not going for complete understanding."

Mr. Berman says his daughter understood on her own that it helps her Mattel stock if her friends buy Barbie dolls. And she demonstrates an elemental grasp of how corporate mergers might work. "If Wrigley buys Hershey -- chocolate gum," she says.

More tangible lessons are provided by the box of chewing gum Wrigley sends Ashley each Christmas and the dividend checks. Going to Mars National Bank to deposit the checks and reviewing her quarterly bank statements reinforces the importance of saving, Mr. Berman says. He opened Ashley's account at Mars on the chance the privately held bank will give his daughter a crack at her first initial public offering.

"That would be an excellent teaching experience," he says.

Mr. Berman's experiment is a work in progress. While he has broached the subjects of price/earnings and prospective earnings growth ratios with Ashley, he concedes "I don't want her to get too nerdy about it."

With iPods, designer apparel and other consumer goods tempting them, children need to get a little nerdier about their money. Mr. Berman is attempting to prevent Ashley from turning into his 21-year-old stepdaughter, the one who threw away a dividend check because it was only for $4 and worked at Starbucks but didn't take advantage of the coffee shop's employee stock purchase plan.

"She closed her ears off. She refused to listen. I don't want that to happen to Ashley," Mr. Berman says. "People need to learn how to save. I think if you do it when you're young, you'll do more of it when you're older."

Godspeed Mr. Berman.