The Barefoot Investor. Scott Pape
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on your terms.
Believe me, as a finance guy, I've seen it thousands of times.
It's like a mate of mine who's an awesome mechanic. I've watched him turn his head to the side and listen as a car pulls up, and casually tell the driver, ‘Time to tighten your fan-belt cobber … and get them to change the oil while they're at it’. To me, he's like the Nostradamus of cars. For him, it's nothing special; it's just what he does: after years of doing something day in, day out, patterns emerge that are easy to pick.
It's the same with my job. The best way to get to the guts of someone's financial situation (other than poring over their financials) is to turn my head, and listen intently as they describe their situation.
Patterns always emerge. Here are some of the scripts that may be turning over in your financial fanbelt right now.
Here's you: I'm not that smart with money.
Here's me: No-one is born ‘smart with money’. It's a learnt skill — like driving — and it has more to do with your behaviour than your brains. This explains why I know a lot of so-called financial experts who don't have two bob to rub together — and why I also know wealthy people who never finished high school. You don't need to be a financial expert to win with money. It's much more important to start than it is to be smart. And remember: you're in luck — you've got me as your independent tour guide to financial independence.
Here's you: I don't earn enough.
Here's me: It's not about what you earn, but what you save. I've had clients who were cleaners their entire lives, who never earned more than the minimum wage, but used compound interest to build a million-dollar portfolio.
Here's you: I've left it too late … I should have saved more when I was younger.
Here's me: Stop for a second and tell me what age you'll be when you die.
Go on … answer that.
I'll wait.
Most people don't think about their long-term future, but nearly everyone has a specific age in mind when they'll die.
Next, subtract your current age from that number.
Now you have a ballpark figure for how many years you've got left on the planet.
The question is: What are you going to do with them?
You can continue living in the past, beating yourself up about the money mistakes you made when you were younger, telling yourself you've left it too late … or you can rise up and make yourself proud.
Here's you: The economy sucks.
Here's me: More millionaires were created in the Great Depression than at any other time. Author and physician Peter Diamandis found that in the past century the average lifespan has doubled, while the average income has tripled. Food is 10 times cheaper, electricity is 20 times cheaper, transport is 100 times cheaper and communication is 1000 times cheaper. These are the good old days.
Stop with the excuses
These are all excuses. Every single one of them.
You can live the rest of your life with excuses about your lot — most people do — but they sure as hell won't protect you from the financial fire that's eventually going to work its way to you.
There are people who've sat where you are right now — with their self-confidence shot and with very little money or prospects — and they have singlehandedly clawed back control over their money and their life.
And you're going to meet some of them.
In this book, I'm going to introduce you to:
a working-class couple who were convinced they'd left it too late … and got themselves on track to retire with a million-dollar nest egg
a young man who doubled his money … and built his legacy
a young woman who clawed her way out from under tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt … and then helped her mother do the same
a grief-stricken widow who was left in dire straits … who went on to put all her kids through private school
a single woman who bought her (capital city, non-dogbox) home all on her very own … no man was part of her financial plan
a mother whose husband's parting words were, ‘You'll never survive financially without me’ … who proved the jerk wrong.
They're people like you — just without the excuses.
The truth hurts, right?
It's kind of like when you see a picture of yourself on Facebook and think, ‘Who's that fat bastard?’
When you're a bit flabby, there's no denying it. You know it. Your kids know it. You can't hide it. It's there on display for everybody to see and judge.
But it's the opposite when it comes to money. It's easy to hide your financial flab from the world.
I've found that it's often the most financially flabby people who appear to look the fittest. They can have a McMortgaged McMansion, a leased Lexus and a maxed-out platinum credit card, and you'd never know that behind closed doors they're the financial equivalent of pudgy North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
No-one knows that they're walking around with the financial equivalent of cankles.
At least if you've got a muffin top you've got the motivation to buy an Ab King Pro on a late-night infomercial, or sign up for Light n’ Easy.
But if you look like you have a financial sixpack, you've got zero motivation to change. And that's why most people never do.
Facing up to the fact that you're not as successful or sorted as you tell yourself you are — or as your family and friends believe you to be — takes guts. It's like standing butt-naked in front of the mirror and looking at your gut. Stripped of your clothes, and excuses, there's no-one to blame but yourself for the situation you're in. You made your decisions. You decided to let yourself cruise.
That's the alpaca kick right there: seeing your situation for what it really is and having the courage to change it.
Success isn't found in the eyes of others: buying things you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress people you won't know in 20 years' time.
True and lasting success is knowing deep in your bones that you have the freedom to tread your own path in life, and the ability to protect those you love.
Be financially fireproof
Look, life is busy. Life is a messy bathroom, running late to your kids' footy matches, unpaid overtime, and collapsing at the end of the week on the couch with Indian takeaway and pappadum crumbs on your shirt.
If you try to do a million things, you'll do none.
Yet that's the power of focusing on just one thing — one step — and ticking it off the list.
Let me explain why this works with one last fire analogy.
Our fire plan was simple: on extreme risk days, Liz would pack up our son, leave the farm and head for the city. And on the morning of our fire, I was sitting at my kitchen table at the house, with my CFA-issued volunteer pager next to me.
It hadn't gone off … yet.
However, the smoke was starting to surround me, so I decided to drive to my neighbours', who live on a ridge, to get a better view of what the hell was going on.
I rounded up the dogs and put them in the back of the old farm ute, turned on the