All tagged The Barefoot Investor
I'm hosting a giveaway to celebrate The Happy Saver’s 8th Anniversary. This isn't just any ordinary giveaway. With her creative flair, my daughter made a paper mache piggy bank way back in 2021. It’s taken three long years of her diligently filling it up, and now it’s time to break it open and see just how much she’s saved. To enter to win one of the prizes, take a wild guess at the total amount inside the piggy bank.
In my last blog post, where I was giving away a bunch of books on personal finance, I gave you two ways to enter. You could either just click enter and get on with your day, or you could take a moment to answer my wide-open question, “Tell me in 100 words or less how you have improved your financial situation”. I honestly thought most people would just enter to win the books without taking the time to write a response. Gosh, was I wrong! My inbox quickly filled up with over 260 fantastic responses, and I’m sharing all of them below. Yep, all of them.
This week, I’ve employed two exceptional 15-year-old women to help me review the new Scott Pape book Barefoot Kids, Your Epic Money Adventure. When I asked if they actually enjoyed reading the book or only did it because I paid them, Ivy said that she thought it would be a boring chore. But then she began to enjoy it because the more she read, the more inspired to start her own business she became. Nina loved reading it because she is interested in books and websites that teach kids about money. But, sure, she said, the $30 was a fab bonus too! In this book review, I bring together all our different thoughts, and you get to decide whether it is worth buying for the kids in your life.
To my surprise, I’ve chalked up five years of writing this blog! And I can’t quite believe it. I thought I’d blog today about what I’ve learnt, observed and what it’s like to write a blog because there is not a single day that has gone by that I’ve not emailed or spoken with someone about what I tend to refer to with my whanau and friends as ‘blog stuff’.
I originally wrote this blog post back in December 2018 and I’ve decided it was time to make a few updates to it so that all those people reading the book for the first time and those who are following along with the Barefoot Investor principles have a good New Zealand resource to come to. If you have read my original post, while it’s still relevant, this one is quite different because it takes into account different providers of services, so I encourage you to read this one too!
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
I’ve had my millionaire questionnaire available since July and I thought I’d look at a couple of the questions in particular and see if there are any common threads that we can draw on and I’ve read through each response and gleaned the following advice for you.
The Barefoot Investor by Australian Scott Pape is an excellent book and it has been instrumental in changing the financial direction of not just Australians but also of Kiwis. Many people have asked me to work out what the Kiwi equivalents are of the providers he recommends. I’m not saying this is a conclusive list, but I’ve given it my best shot.
Once WE as adults become better with money then it’s natural that we want to enlighten our kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews so this book is a must read in my view because it guides you through the steps of how to do it WITHOUT annoying the hell out of the child.
