Coin image courtesy Corbis

What if I saved 25 cents every day since the day I was born? Just about everyone can afford to put a quarter into a piggy bank every day. So this is a great question -- it shows how a little bit of money can really add up over time.

Let's say that, on the day you were born, your parents bought you a piggy bank and put a quarter into your new piggy bank that day and every day thereafter. And let's say that you are 11 years old today. If you break open the piggy bank and count the quarters, you would have just over 4,000 of them. That adds up to about $1,000.

No one would mind having $1,000 to spend, and all that money came from putting a tiny bit of money into a piggy bank every day.

This experiment is even more interesting if you put the money into a bank account rather than a piggy bank. In a bank account, you get the extra bonus of interest payments. Today the interest rate is about 4 percent per year. That means that, every year, the bank pays you 4 percent on the money that you have in the account.

So, in the first year, you put 365 quarters in the bank account. That equals $91.25. If you have $91.25 in a bank account for one year, the bank will pay you 4 percent -- $3.65 -- for the money in your account.

I know that $3.65 does not sound like much, but it grows every year. By putting your $1,000 into a bank account rather than a piggy bank, you earn about $250 extra. That's the interest that the bank pays on the money.

Another place to put the money is in the stock market. The stock market is funny because some years it goes up and some years it goes down. But if you look at the stock market over a long period of time, it earns about 10 percent per year. That means that your $1,000 would grow by about $800 over the course of 11 years. In other words, it nearly doubles. Instead of having $1,000 to spend after 11 years, you have $1,800 to spend. That's a big difference. But it is not guaranteed in the stock market.

Interest is even more interesting if you look at it over longer periods of time. What would happen if you put a quarter into a piggy bank for your entire life? Let's say you save a quarter every day for 70 years. You would save more than $6,000.

If you put that $6,000 into a bank account earning 4 percent, the interest really adds up. You would have $34,000 after 70 years.

In the stock market, the money may grow even more. If the stock market gains 10 percent every year, on average, for 70 years, then you would have an amazing $790,000 when you are 70 years old. And if you were to save an entire dollar a day rather than 25 cents, you would have more than $3 million. It really is amazing how the interest grows over 70 years.

Start saving those quarters today!