What I’m buying my family for Christmas

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Years ago, I cracked the Christmas code: I buy people books.

Giving people a book says, “I think you’re the sort of person who can unglue yourself from your screen and spend a few hours learning something. In other words, I think you’re smart.”

And it’s a smart deal for me too: books cost under $30, they don’t require a separate card (I just scribble a Merry Christmas message on the inside cover), and my local bookstore will even giftwrap them for me. Job done!

Here are the books I’ll be putting in my Santa sack this year:

Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss

So inflation is ripping the backside out of your buckets … everything costs more these days.

Which is exactly why you need to negotiate a hefty pay rise – at least 7% – next year.

If the thought of that negotiation fills you with horror, you need to read Never Split the Difference.

Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator, and his method doesn’t involve being sleazy or manipulative … in fact it’s just the opposite. Instead, he shows you how to get what you want while still being empathetic, understanding and non-confrontational.

It’s both practical and powerful, and I use these techniques in the trenches every day (with my kids).

4,000 Weeks, Oliver Burkeman

Did you know the average person gets just 4,000 weeks on this planet?

Doesn’t sound like a lot, right?

But it gets worse: you’ve already used up a good chunk of them (I’m about halfway – hopefully).

Heavy, huh?

Yes, it is. And the book’s introduction kicks off cheerfully: “In the long run, we’re all dead.”

Yet that’s what makes this book so interesting: it doesn’t fall for cookie-cutter time management tips, and it takes an axe to the current culture where ‘busy’ has been rebranded as ‘hustle’ and worn like a badge of pride.

Every other time management book I’ve ever read talks about how you can stuff more things into your schedule. This book turns that idea on its head: it smacks you in the face with how little time you have left, and shows you how to really make the most of it.

The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, Jack Bogle

Over the years I must have given away at least fifty copies of this little classic. (Whenever someone tells me they’re going to see a financial planner, I give them a copy.) Jack Bogle was the founder of Vanguard Investments and is regarded as an ‘investment hero’ by none other than Warren Buffett.

What makes this book so powerful is its simplicity: Jack demolishes Wall Street sales spin and teaches the reader everything they need to know about investing – and how to earn above-average returns – in a little book that you can read in an afternoon.

Barefoot Kids (OF COURSE)

Yes, you guessed it, I’ll also be giving a plug to my new book, Barefoot Kids.

I’ve been getting messages from parents and grandparents all around the country that it’s the first book their kids have read cover to cover in a long time. And it makes the perfect stocking-filler – a cheap gift you can actually feel good about buying them.

Tread Your Own Path!

The eight-year-old who built a school

So this is probably going to get me in trouble, but here goes:

To the billions of people living in the developing world … we’re all ‘Karens’.

“Barefoot! How dare you label me a Karen! I DEMAND to speak to your editor!”

(Trust me, he does not care.)

Yet let me introduce you to someone you should speak to: an eight-year-old girl called Amalia.

Amalia lives in Adelaide with her mum and brothers and sisters. She loves fashion, horse riding and doing her pocket money jobs. Yet there’s something amazing about what Amalia has done with the money she put in her Give Bucket:

She built a school.

Seriously. Amalia and her mum, Susan, built a three-storey school that is now home to 120 primary school students. It’s in Kenya, Africa, in a place called Korogocho.

Korogocho is a Swahili word meaning ‘shoulder to shoulder’ … and that’s how people live in Korogocho. There isn’t much electricity, so it gets dark inside. There are no air-conditioners, and lots of people have to share one tap for water.

The kids Amalia’s age play in a creek that’s polluted with rubbish and sewage. “For fun they find old bike tyres and use them as hula hoops”, says Amalia.

Yes, life in Korogocho is tough. Many kids there can’t afford to go to school, and those who do are stuck in classrooms that can have as many as 150 kids!

Amalia and her mum set out to do something for the kids of Korogocho. They are not rich, but they paid for it all themselves from their Give Buckets.

And now that the school is up and running they are paying the wages for six teachers and three helpers. The kids get cooked lunches and the chance to learn dancing and all the important stuff that kids need to learn.

“I’m proud of our school. If we hadn’t built it, none of those kids would have gotten to go to school”, Amalia tells me. “The reason my Give Bucket is so important to me is that my goal in life is ‘to make the world kinder’.”

Amalia is just one of the kids in my new book, Barefoot Kids.

Talking to kids about money can sometimes feel a little icky … kind of consumerist and capitalist.

But let me tell you a secret: the jam jars aren’t really about money at all … they’re about hard work, kindness, and feeling good inside.

When Amalia’s mum asked her, “what do you want to be now?”

She replied, “everything I already am”.

How good is that?

Tread Your Own Path!

Barefooters Dig Deep

Hi Scott,

I work at Foodbank NSW & ACT, and I just want to say a huge THANK YOU on behalf of our team for the shout-out in your last column! Yesterday alone we received over $135,000 in donations, which we believe is mainly due to your call out. These donations will go a long way in helping us to continue distributing crisis hampers to those affected by the floods across the state. Thank you again!

Natalie from Foodbank

Hi Natalie,

Our Barefoot Community is amazing!

I’m also hoping you got a lot of very small donations … from kids.

My ‘Jam Jar’ system for pocket money makes ‘giving’ one of the three categories for kids to spend their money on.

Reason being, getting kids to habitually give is one of the most practical ways to raise empathetic, generous adults. And Foodbank is one of the best places to donate their money from their ‘Give Jar’, because, after all, kids understand what it’s like to be hungry (and hangry). It’s tangible, it’s immediate, and it’s badly needed.

Thanks for all the work you do.

To donate, head to foodbankna.org/helpfloods

Scott.

There’s Always Someone Doing it Tougher

Hi Scott,

I’m a flight attendant who has just been laid off. It’s a bit scary not knowing when or if I’ll get my job back, but thanks to you we’re okay for now — we have Mojo enough to last us for several months. I also watched your bushfire doco, ‘The Road to Recovery’, the other day. It’s a really good dose of perspective that there are a lot of people doing it tougher than me. So I just wanted to thank you for all the good work you do.

Kaye

Hi Kaye,

You’re absolutely right … Now is the time for some much needed perspective. I got mine last week, before the lockdown came into place, when I travelled to the fire-affected community that I’ve been volunteering as a financial counsellor. 

Think about this for a moment: it’s been three-months since the bushfires. We know from experience in previous disasters that it’s at around this time that mental health issues start to surface … and now they have to socially isolate and stay home alone. 

The locals I met with told me they (quite rightfully) feel like Australia has forgotten about them.

It’s a disaster in the making.

Scott

Cashier Kindness

Hi Scott,

How fantastic that you shouted that guy his meal! I was myself behind a lady in the queue at Coles recently and saw she had her groceries scanned and bagged, and for good measure her son had started tucking into some snacks from the bags. She then realised that her card was not in her wallet, and started fretfully taking the bags back out of the trolley. Without hesitation I handed my card over to the cashier to pay for the lady’s shopping, and I would not allow her to pay me back either. Best $70 I’ve ever spent, helping out a fellow mum during a crappy part.

Melanie

Hi Melanie,

One night I went to a chew-and-spew and found that I’d forgotten my wallet.

It was chopsticks at midnight over an $18 pad thai … I seriously thought the restaurant owner was going to call the cops on me. (And it would have been much worse if my little tacker was tucking into some san choy bau!)

So I can completely understand how that woman was feeling.

Today we rush around so much that occasionally you forget your wallet … and isn’t it nice that for that woman, at that moment, you were there as a smiling face?

The truth that all givers know is that the giver always gets the most out of it.

Hopefully she went home and explained to her kid that even in this day and age of division … isn’t it good to know that there are good people who can help?

(Unlike the owner of the  Chinese restaurant … a big chop-suey to you, Mel!)

Scott