Money magazine's Jean Chatzky has a pretty cool idea for a gift for your recent college graduate: a few sessions with a financial planner. Most kids need financial help, and many parents are ill-equipped to provide that. Even if a parent is wonderfully competent, kids may not want to hear it from them.

In addition to giving your child the services of a financial planner, I have a couple other ideas for small gifts to help your grad avoid the financial ditches that so many find themselves digging out of later in life:

• Suze Orman's The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke -- This book is pretty readable and covers pretty much everything a young un' needs to know: credit cards, housing, cars, investing, and frugality.
• A gift card to a store like Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) or 99 Cents Only (NYSE: NDN) -- This would of course be tacky as a graduation gift on its own, but these are wonderful places to buy household items at great savings. If you can get someone into the habit of shopping at these kinds of stores, you will save them tons of money over the years.

For the fashion-conscious grad, you may also want to consider How to Be a Budget Fashionista. It's written with women in mind but much of the advice is pretty universal.