Barefoot Investor
I read The Barefoot Investor – The Only Money Guide You’ll Ever Need by Scott Pape and found it an extremely good book which takes one through the fundamentals of building wealth ( it is however geared for the Australian market but there are some important principles applicable to growing your balance sheet )
Scott is an independent investment financial advisor who writes articles for the press and has a very large community following- I am a long time member of his community
In the book he describes a low point in his life when his family house was lost through a bush fire and this unfortunate event was the “flame” for writing the book and is a very moving story
The book is divided into 8 steps
1 Schedule a Monthly Date Night
Here Scott talks about setting up a date night to discuss finances – what a great idea – I am going to be doing this
2 Set up your 3 Buckets
- Blow – try to live off 60% of your income – this is for expenses and some splurge
- Mojo- this is your safety money
- Grow – for long term wealth
3 Domino your debts
4 Buy your home
5 Supercharge your wealth
6 Boost your Mojo to 3 months
7 Get the banker off your back
8 Nail your retirement number
9 Leave a legacy
Her is a summary of the points I am going to teach to my kids
- try and get a little more wealthier each day – be this by saving or growing their education and reading good books about finance
- make a list of people you want to meet one day and try and work on a plan to meet them one day- my daughter wanted to meet her You tube animator so I took her to the Vidcon in Melbourne and she met him
- grow your income by doing a little side business my son is selling introduction videos
- try and become and investor early – I am setting “barefoot date” nights to teach them. I am being a good money manager myself – Scott mentions this habit on page 172 on how to raise financially fit kids – I have summarised our family’s net worth by doing a balance sheet on a spreadsheet for the date nights