About a month ago, I used this column to answer a reader's question about children and money. At the time, I asked for your ideas, too.

A reader named Mindy responded, and I think her plan deserves some ink.

"Beginning at age 8," she wrote, "I started giving my son a weekly allowance. I learned very quickly that our spending/saving tendencies were drastically different, and I had a hard time really letting him take control of his own allowance."

To rectify this problem, Mindy says, she and her son, Brandon, came up with a system. Under their plan, he took 20 percent "right off the top" of his allowance. Of that, 10 percent went into a savings account and 10 percent went to charity.

"The remaining 80 percent was his to spend as he chose (without unsolicited advice from Mom)," Mindy wrote. "This spending/saving plan carried over to all money that my son received."

But another event in her son's life really drove the lesson home, Mindy says. She read in the Deseret Morning News about an essay contest in which children were encouraged to write about a financial topic. Her son decided to write about the 80/10/10 system.

"Our Founding Fathers built this nation around the principles of liberty and freedom," Brandon's essay begins. "They carefully outlined guidelines that they felt would ensure the continuation of these principles as our nation matured. Like our Founding Fathers, I am trying to preserve freedom — not freedom from religious persecution, or government control; instead, my goal is financial freedom.

"Financial freedom isn't based on how much money we have, it's how we manage what we have. When we control our money, rather than letting our money control us, we have freedom."

Oh, how I long for such freedom, Brandon!

He goes on to describe the financial plan he worked up with his mom, which he called "The Power of Ten."

"Ten percent is a really easy percentage to figure out (you just drop the last zero and move the decimal to the left one spot) and it doesn't seem like a lot of money when I take it out right off the top," Brandon wrote. "When I pay myself first for these accounts, I know the money is always there and I guarantee that I spend less than what I earn . . . .

"It isn't bad to want things and it isn't bad to share your money with others, there just has to be balance. 'The Power of Ten' helps me have that balance."

Brandon had the basics of money management nailed in fifth grade, and his essay won second place.

"The prize was $2,500 worth of shares in the Liberty Young Investor fund," Mindy wrote. "Plus his winning essay was published online. If the family lesson on financial planning didn't make enough of an impact, winning this contest certainly did. What a wonderful unexpected reward!"