You are hardly alone. I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in a family where my parents taught me this stuff from an early age. As soon as I was old enough to get an allowance, the answer to "Mom, can I have this?" was "Save your money." On account of having to pay tithing (10% of increase, i.e. income less living expenses) at church, stewardship was pretty important. I was taught to save receipts, balance a checkbook, budget for expenditures, etc.

And sadly, I ignore most of that now. However, the big things I learned are:

1) Don't spend money you don't have. If you can't pay immediately with cash, don't buy it on credit.

2) Save money for the rough times (not to mention retirement). The more the better. The earlier the better.

3) Don't ignore quality of life, but at the same time, there's no need to be a fiscal hedonist.

Honestly, that's about the gist of it -- the devil is in the details, and boy, are there a heck of a lot of details.

One of the better "intro to personal finance" books I've read (back in high school) is The Wealthy Barber. It was incredibly easy to read and understand, and gave simple advice.

I'd follow that up with the Motley Fool books. Again, these are all simple, easy to read books. They go a bit further than Wealthy Barber, shies away from all the financial mumbo-jumbo that turns off most people from looking at finances when possible, and introduces it gently when necessary. In addition to their books, they also have a huge website, with everything from free financial articles, stock quotes and charts, to user forums (sadly non-free). It's probably the most popular financial website on the Internet, and is usually the first place I look when I have questions about things like stocks, life insurance, etc.

If you want to move beyond the Motley Fool, a great deal of what they base their material on is the philosophy from The Intelligent Investor. This is the advice that Warren Buffett followed in his investing. I have yet to read this (it's on my nightstand), but as the title suggests, it leaves the personal finance stuff to other people, and deals soley with how to invest that nest-egg wisely.