WASHINGTON(Reuters) ? Well-to-do Americans are more worried about their kids being able to make it in a challenging economy than they are about terrorism, according to a recent survey by US Trust Corp.

That?s not surprising. Terrorism may seem far away while their kids ? including recent college graduates ? might be home in their own bedrooms. It?s hard to imagine that today?s liberal arts degree-holders will ever be able to afford a house, health insurance, and their own family on the $30,000 starter salaries that are reportedly average now. That doesn?t even begin to address the $20,000 or so of indebtedness they graduated with.

Today?s young adults may feel stretched to the max by college loans, an underwhelming job market, an overheated housing market, the disappearance of company (or parent-) paid insurance programs, and the need to buy career clothes, furniture and wheels all at once.

They are further hampered by the fact that they often don?t know a lot about money management; it?s not something that most colleges teach very aggressively. If they are lucky, they?ve heard a few lectures about the perils of getting in over their heads in credit card debt.

But a little bit of planning at a young age can go pretty far. There are steps that newbie workers can take to start getting ahead, and ways in which their parents can help a little bit more and worry a little bit less.

Here?s a starter list.

*Do whatever it takes to start with zero credit card debt and keep it that way. If you build up card balances during college, use all of your graduation gifts to pay them down. Take a vow of poverty until the card is paid off. If you?re graduating college with any savings at all, use that savings to kill your card balance. Vow to use your credit card only for items you?ll be able to pay off when the bill comes.

*Consolidate your student loans, and do it before next week. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is going to disappear on July 1, so get that application in now. Even if you have to finish reading this article later.

*Get a checking account and a savings account. Make sure the checking account affords overdraft protection. If it doesn?t, keep a cushion in the account of at least $100 that you won?t write checks against, while you learn to balance your checkbook and master the finer points of not overdrawing your account with ATM withdrawals.

*Bank online. Recent graduates move a lot, and change their addresses a lot, and just because a bill can?t find you doesn?t mean you?re not supposed to pay it.

*Set up an automatic transfer from your checking account into your savings account every month, or every pay period. Once your account hits $2,000, find a money market mutual fund to put that money in. That is your rainy day fund. If it helps you to visualise your first nice apartment, or one more spring break trip to Puerto Vallarta, or a car, think away. But the bigger you build this fund, the fewer rainy days you?ll have and the more choices you?ll be able to afford to pursue.

*Don?t go naked. You can?t afford to be without health insurance, even for a day. If you don?t have a job that pays your health insurance, shop for an inexpensive but reliable plan at http://www.ehealthinsurance.com. The day you get kicked off your parents? policy could be the day you break your leg or have an even more troubling or expensive medical emergency. On the other hand, don?t get sold on life insurance just yet. If you?re only responsible for yourself, you won?t need it.

*Open a Roth IRA. These will turn into cash-producing miracle accounts for the next generation. You can feed them with up to $4,000 a year and let it grow and grow and never pay taxes on the proceeds. A good place to open this account is with a no-load mutual fund company that has a basic stock index fund. You?ll be able to use some of that money for a down payment on a house. Even better: Never use it. Just let it build and build: A 23-year-old who manages to stuff $4,000 a year into a Roth IRA earning an average of eight percent a year will have roughly $35,600 by the time she?s 30, $221,800 when she?s 45 and a cool million when she?s 62. And she will be someday, really.

Parents: This is a good place to help. You can make your hard-working grad scrap for her own clothes, car, and health insurance, but if you can afford the gift, feed her Roth IRA until she?s making enough to feed it herself.

*Defer gratification: Cool cars, upgraded electronics, full price menus might have to wait a little longer while you?re getting solvent. Appreciate the family?s old car or the bus, the television that seemed large in your dorm room, and happy-hour prices, until you?re a bit more established.

*Learn more. The FDIC recently published a special financial guide for young adults, called ?Taking Control of Your Finances?, and available at the agency?s website (http://www.fdic.gov) under ?Consumer News?. It?s got a lot of pithy information about bank accounts, buying and leasing cars, consumer protection laws and more. If you start learning about savings, investing and consuming when you are in your 20s, it makes long-term prosperity pretty inevitable.

US Trust Corp, a money management firm, surveys the wealthiest one percent of Americans annually. This is the first time since September 11, 2001, that terrorism worries were superseded by other concerns.

@EDITRULE:Linda Stern is a freelance writer. Any opinions in the column are solely those of Ms Stern.