Recent bank reforms in the US created a requirement for any institution offering any checking account to offer at least one checking account option with no fees and no overdraft protection. At my banker's suggestion, I opened this type of account for my son. He has a debit card, but no checks. When he runs out of money, the debit card gets rejected -- no debt and no overdraft fees are possible. It's a great tool for him to learn money management, doesn't cost me anything, and enables him to buy ebooks online and other stuff he's interested in with his own money.

That said, at his age I couldn't afford a VPS...I learned by setting up server daemons on my desktop and messing around with them.