Don’t get a snag from Bunnings — buy this instead

Today I’m going to tell you about a $69 purchase from Bunnings that’ll keep your family’s finances safe.

Given we’re at the start of fire season, it’s important to have all your essential documents in one place.

Like what?

Well, I have a system I write about in The Barefoot Investor for Families called the Fearless Folder. The book lays it all out, but at a base level you want to get copies of your will, powers of attorney, bank accounts, investments, insurance policies and login details.

And then you stick them all in a First Alert Fire Safe and Waterproof Protection Chest, which costs $69 at Bunnings.

What I like about these chests (other than the fact that they’re fireproof and waterproof) is that they’re small enough for you to pick up by the handle if you have to evacuate your house.

Here’s the thing: we lost everything when our house burned to the ground … except our important documents. Having all those docs made the process of rebuilding our financial lives that much easier.

Yet this year I decided to go bigger.

I was scrolling through Gumtree and I saw an old heavy-duty safe with a spinning combination lock and brass keys.

A few days later it arrived at the farm, and it was so big we had to use the tractor to move it.

I parked it at the shearing shed until I’d decided what to do with it.

Yet the next day my five-year-old son (who’s going through a ‘super spy’ phase) started … playing with it.

Later, he provided this statement of events to Senior Sergeant Dad:

“Look, I was just playing and spinning around the lock, and then I closed the door ... and then it wouldn’t open up.”

It turns out he’d actually managed to reset the code. And then locked the door.

With the only set of keys inside.

And so, with my tail between my legs, I begged my local locksmith to fix it.

He took one look and announced: “It’s locked for good.”

“Oh, there must be something you can do”, I protested.

He shook his head.

“Mate, it’s a 95-year-old safe. Once it’s shut, it’s shut. The only thing we could do is oxy a hole in the back, but that would destroy it. It’s now a nice piece of furniture. Haw! haw! haw!”

The locksmith got in his car, still chuckling at his gag, and started his engine.

Yet just as he was about to leave he wound down his window.

“You know, there is this one bloke I’ve heard about who gets round the traps. He’s a … safecracker.”

Bewdy!

The next day the safecracker arrived.

“Will you be able to crack it?” I asked.

“Yes”, he said with an unsettling amount of conviction.

It’s a rather unusual trade, so I didn’t ask many questions, and just pointed him to the shearing shed.

And after a couple of hours — and $300 — he’d cracked the safe.

Learned my lesson: it’s better (and cheaper) to stick with the $69 portable safe!

Tread Your Own Path!