Help! A Duffer Got Me Up the Duff

Hi Scott,
 
My partner and I have just found out we are pregnant. We have only been together six months and had our first financial Date Night scheduled for the weekend following the news. It has definitely not been ideal! While I don’t have much in savings, I do have an apartment and a car. He has neither assets nor much in savings: a total of $7,000 in his account and last night he told me he wants to buy himself a bike worth $1,300! I am freaking out about combining my assets with someone who is financially irresponsible, particularly while I am pregnant and then on maternity leave. I know you advocate sharing bank accounts, but are there instances when they should be kept separate?

Narelle
 
Hi Narelle,
 
Congratulations on your news!
 
Now, I don’t know anyone who’s ever been fully prepared for their first child. It’s a shemozzle from the get-go (and then you have another one).
 
You sound like you’re a few financial bases further on from your partner, which is a good thing, but don’t write him off yet.
 
My advice?
 
Do the Barefoot Date Nights, starting next week.
 
The first Date Night gets you to set up a bank account. Here’s where you have your first of many honest conversations. Let him know that you’re not going to share a bank account with him right now, because you need to protect yourself and your baby financially. 
 
Then explain that the way to prove he’s committed is to follow the Barefoot Steps. They’ll not only keep you on the same page, they’ll guide your new little family to financial safety.

Scott.

I Gave My Parents the Best Christmas Present Ever

Last year I bought my parents the best Christmas present ever.
 
It’s called ‘Storyworth’, and it’s a really cool way to get people to tell their life story.
 
Once a week, Storyworth emails my parents a question that inspires them to write, like:
 
“What is one of the funniest things you’ve ever done?”
 
“Did you have any pets growing up?”
 
“Where were you at the moon landing?”
 
They reply to the email, and then at the end of the year their stories are bound together in a printed book to keep and treasure forever. Or at least that’s the guff on Storyworth’s sales page.
 
Unfortunately, my old man didn’t really take to it.
 
Storyworth: “Where were you at the moon landing?”
 
Dad: “At home watching it on TV.”
 
It was shaping up as not so much a book as a pamphlet.
 
My mother, on the other hand, took to it with gusto. Her Storyworth will probably be a trilogy!
 
Now, Storyworth is really just a simple way for Boomers to write their memoirs … one emailed question at a time.
 
But you, dear reader, are probably not as old as my parents.
 
In fact, you’re actually living your life right now. So what will your story be?

The key to making it a blockbuster – and not Groundhog Day – is working out what matters most.
 
The fastest way to do that is what I call the ‘funeral test’:
 
As we approach Christmas, put down your phone and spend a few minutes thinking about your own funeral. Many people (men in particular) spend much of their lives pursuing things that look impressive on their resumé: Fancy titles. Money. Power. Respect. Status trophies.
 
However, the person delivering your eulogy won’t talk about the car you drive, the title you attained, the balance of your bank account … or any of the other things society has you chasing.
 
Instead, they’ll talk about the kind things you did. The courage you showed. The difference you made.
 
Our entire lives are a story. Make yours one worth reading about.
 
Merry Christmas!
 
Tread Your Own Path!

I’m Going to Lose My Apartment

Hi Scott,

I’m at risk of losing my apartment! I am $16,000 in arrears on my loan repayments, and the mortgage is more than I could sell the house for. I have zero credit rating due to blown-out credit cards, and the mortgage is for 30 years, taking me to age 77 before it’s paid off. I can travel on public transport with my work so I’m thinking of selling my car (worth around $5,000) to build up my Mojo and then start knocking off some smaller debts, as you suggest in your book. Is this a good first move?

Lauren
 
Hi Lauren,
 
It’s like you’ve walked into my office bleeding all over my carpet, and you’re asking for an aspirin.
 
This is serious. It’s time for surgery, not solubles.
 
Here’s a list of priorities:
 
First, cover the essentials: food, electricity, gas, and fuel/fares to get to work.
 
A very close second is securing the roof over your head.
 
Third, deal with everything else, including your credit cards.
 
Finally, should you sell your car? Maybe, but only if you don’t really need it. Still, selling the car will save you on rego, repairs, insurance and petrol. Plus, having $2,000 in Mojo is an awesome psychological buffer, and you could use the $3,000 to buy some time with your bank.
 
Then again, I don’t really know the full picture. So please call the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007 and speak to a financial counsellor, who will help you work out a game plan.

Scott.

Barefoot Got Hacked!

Hi Scott,
 
Have you been hacked? Recently I was tagged by ‘Scott Pape’ from a Facebook page congratulating me on being one of 20 people chosen to ‘win $1,000’. According to a Facebook user called ihack on this page, all I had to do was to ‘follow a few simple steps’ such as clicking on the link to the ‘official website’ and registering my credit card details. I have reported the post, but I also wanted to bring this to your attention.
 
Sarah
 
Hi Sarah,
 
Yes, this is one of the many Facebook scams that target me, or more specifically my followers.
 
Let me be crystal clear:
 
I will never contact you via social media, and for a very good reason: I can’t.
 
You see, my long-serving assistant controls all my social media profiles and I don’t have any of the logins. Honestly, I spend zero time on social media.
 
As in none.
 
Finally, Sarah, if anyone actually fell for this scam it’s a sign that it’s time to delete their Facebook account. After all, the scammer’s profile name is ‘ihack’?!
 
Get off the grass!

Scott.

My Husband Won’t Let me Stop Working, Even Though We’re Worth $7 Million

Dear Scott,
 
My husband is in his 60s and happily retired. I am in my mid-50s and still working. We are childless. We have nearly $7 million in assets (including a paid-off house worth about $1.5 million), our dividends are about $500,000 a year gross, and I want out. He is concerned that we’ll run out of money if I stop working. I just don’t know how to sit down and work out when ‘enough is enough’? How do I get my husband to see my point of view?

Christina

Hi Christina,
 
Your question reminds me of a legendary story by John Bogle:
 
“At a party given by a billionaire, author Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds: “Yes, but I have something he will never have – ENOUGH”.’
 
The same could be said for your husband. You could stop working today! With no debts, and $500,000 passive income a year, you have more than ENOUGH.
 
It sounds like you need a Barefoot Date Night. And if he still doesn’t listen to your concerns, you could gently tell him you could live off $250,000 a year … which is what you’d get if you divorced him. Not that you ever would, of course.

Scott.

We Thought Our Daughter Had a Learning Disability

Hi Scott,

I want to say thank you for writing one of the most incredible books for kids. My eight-year-old daughter has a tendency to read the first chapter of a book then get bored. At first we thought she had a learning disability, until I purchased your book. She was obsessed! Couldn’t put it down and read it twice in three days! She was so into it that she put her headphones on when reading so no one could distract her. She kept reading it even to and from school. So thank you for helping us start one of the most essential conversations with our kids – about finances – and for validating that she doesn’t have a learning disability. I was just making the wrong book selections!
 
Lina
 
Hi Lina,
 
What a little legend!  
 
ou know it’s awesome that kids are reading this book, but what’s even better is that they’re using it to become Barefoot Bosses and teach their parents a thing or two about making money.
 Oh, and now that she’s reading, I’ve got another recommendation for her: my kids are loving Nazeem Hussain’s book Hy-Larious Hyena.

Scott.

Barefoot Fight Night

Hi Scott,
 
During lockdown my hubby started a small hobby business to ‘keep him busy’. It has now taken over, and not in a good way. He runs it with its own account, separate from our family. I didn’t mind this arrangement as, initially, he was saving for a motorbike. Then I discovered he’s been gambling the profits away into crypto. A massive argument ensued. He says he’s ‘investing for the future’ and it’s ‘his’ money. I say he’s misinformed. What say you?
 
Wendy

Hi Wendy,
 
I see crypto as being in the same category as betting on the nags, breeding gerbils or buying Pokémon cards. So tell him, “mate if that’s your idea of fun, well, pikachu to you!”
 
Just gently suggest he only set aside a small amount of money for his fantasy coin fetish … and then get him thinking about directing the bulk of his profits towards something more meaningful.
 
Like what?
 
Well, I’d go on a Barefoot Date Night and ask him the following question:
 
“What do you LOVE to spend money on?”
 
He might say ‘travel’.
 
Then you say, “Okay, what’s one experience you’ve always wanted to have travelling?” It might be a cooking class in Italy. It might be the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo.
 
The key is to get him excited about saving up for a goal, and not defensive (oh, and also to make it feel like it was his idea in the first place).

Scott.

My favorite podcasts and videos

I’m writing this to you from my bed, where I have been holed up for the past three days.
 
No, I don’t have the bat-flu … I have the man flu.
 
Unfortunately this slight variation in virus delivers 75% less sympathy from my wife:
 
“Oh, so you’re still negative? It’s just a sniffle then? Can you still take the boys to Scouts tonight?”
 
Anyway, I’m so high on Sudafed right now that I have no idea whether any of this is making sense (though my editor would argue that’s never really worried me before).
 
To help pass the time, I’ve been going through a lot of podcasts and watched a lot of dodgy TV (I’m looking at you, Larry Emdur). Here are my top picks:
 
The Coming Recession – The Economist
 
You think the last few years were crazy?
 
Just wait till you see what 2023 has in store for us.
 
We’re heading into a global economic slowdown, and central banks are raising interest rates.
 
That’s like handing a marathon runner two shopping bags full of groceries to carry for the last 5 km.
 
This year’s hikes have added $900 a month to the average $500,000 mortgage.
 
And there’s more to come.
 
The Economist produces long, meaty, rigorously researched articles on the world economy. And, while an annual magazine subscription costs more than my first car, their podcasts are free!
 
Mirror Mirror (Series 2: Love and Hate) – Channel 10 
 
For Christmas this year my nine-year-old son has asked Santa for a book on quantum physics.
 
Ho! Ho! Ho!-wever, when my wife leaves the room he puts down the book he’s reading, slyly picks up her phone and starts playing some version of Candy Crush.
 
It’s like the engineers on the other side of the screen are saying, “Hey kid, don’t bother learning all that hard stuff, just come here and press flashing buttons for hours on end.”
 
If you want to do hard stuff in 2023, you need to watch Todd Sampson’s Mirror Mirror. It’s a frightening doco on the way that screens are rewiring our brains.
 
Australia’s Health Revolution – SBS

This show is life changing.
 
Dr Michael Mosley is a very healthy dude and skinny as a rake, yet for the doco he began following an average Aussie diet.
 
The result?
 
In just two weeks his blood sugar levels became pre-diabetic and his blood pressure became worryingly high. Australia is one of the fattest nations on earth, and it’s killing us.
 
Thankfully, Mosley believes you can reverse type 2 diabetes, and in this series he shows you how to do it. As I sniffled through this three-parter it scared the hell out of me. Health is wealth, and there are a lot of poor people eating very rich foods. Cough! Cough!
 
Tread Your Own Path!

My Wife Has No Idea What I’ve Done …

Hi Scott

I write this with a heavy heart. Three days ago I found out that the investments that my wife and I were making were a scam. We have lost $90,000, our entire house deposit savings. The thing is, she doesn’t know yet. Tough pill to swallow.

This wasn’t a run-of-the-mill scam like clicking on a link or allowing a hacker access to our banking details – it was a sophisticated scam involving purchasing of ‘shares’ for multiple ‘companies’. What concerns me most is how do I face the shame when telling her? (Yes, she was on board with it at the time, but it was my idea.) During our Barefoot Date Nights, along with other topics, we discuss the shares we’ve ‘purchased’. This is probably my biggest fear – letting her down.

And where to from here? Four years of savings, all gone. Thanks to Barefoot we’ve been debt free, but I’m in such disbelief that our house deposit has vanished. Your words keep replaying through my head: “put it into a high-interest savings account if you plan on using it in the next five years”. Fool me once ...

Steve

Hi Steve

I’m so sorry this has happened to you.

The only thing you can do is to be honest with her. Admit that you screwed up and then quickly ‘assume the brace position’, as they say on the Qantas safety cards.

Then, once the turbulence has passed, I have a practical suggestion for you:

I want you to go on a Barefoot Date Night and ask yourselves the following questions:

– What can we learn from getting scammed?
– How could this be a good thing?
– What are we grateful for?

Look, this scumbag scammer already took your money. Don’t let him steal your most precious assets: your self-esteem and your time. You two got yourself out of debt and built up a deposit in four years. You’re still standing. You have each other. You’ll build back better. You got this.

Scott.

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!

Karen Gets Angry

Hi Scott,

Just wanted to let you know how hurtful it is to see my name used as a stand-in for a whinger in last week’s column (‘Karen Gets Angry’). When it’s used by such highly respected people as yourself it just perpetuates it. You wouldn’t believe how many people snigger when I tell them my name. How about you stop stereotyping people?

Karen

Oh, Karen!

I’m sorry for taking such a cheap shot. And I should know better. After all, my family has also been affected by negative name associations: my old man’s name is Donald (as in the guy with the orange hair) and my name is Scott (as in the guy from marketing). This too shall pass, Kazz.

Scott.

We Got This!

Hi Scott!

I’m sure you must get 20 million of these emails, but I just wanted to say thank you! Barefoot works, your buckets work, and my little four-year-old even has her Jam Jars set up. Our little cottage (built in 1914) may not look like much, but it has a beautiful renovation on the back, big sheds, and 2.5 acres with a round yard perfect for our two ponies. When I left an unhappy relationship a few years ago with very little savings, I never dreamt I could not only pay off my debts (including a car) but save enough for a home deposit. Yet here we are, with a SOLD sticker to prove it. I even have enough in my Smile and Splurge accounts to have fun on weekends and plan a holiday. Life is good!

Rhea and Clancy

Hi guys,

Your home is the spitting image of my favourite home in the world: my grandparents’ house in Ouyen. It had three bedrooms … it raised six kids … and it was like Disneyland for me. That place has so many happy memories. Here’s to you making some of your own. You Got This!

Scott.

Christmas Comes Early

Hi Scott,

I was planning on giving your new Barefoot Kids book to my eight-year-old daughter for Christmas. Unfortunately, she found it while I was at work. When I got home that night I was amazed that she had already read half the book, letter-bombed the neighbourhood with her new ‘cat sitting’ business, set up her jars with your stickers, and started setting up her jobs board. Then she hit me with her pocket money pitch. My Chrissy surprise is blown, but it’s so good she is fully engaged!

Chris

Hey Chris

How proud should you be of your daughter? The way most parents teach their kids about money is trial and error … a lot of boring lectures … and a lot of nagging, in the hope that some of it sticks. Yet your daughter is building her own money ‘muscle memories’, and creating her own experiences … some of which will stay with her for the rest of her life.

Scott.

Dr Seuss Gives Financial Advice

G’day Scott,

I’ve been seeing so many ads on Facebook from people spruiking ways to pay off your mortgage in 7 to 10 years. Is there some secret I’m not aware of? We are a young family with two boys and are worried about our repayments when our fixed interest rate ends. It’s been a challenge to save the last year with prices going up and some health challenges on my part. One of our cars has just died too, so we are pretty stressed. Should we take action?

Tenille

Hi Tenille

Last Saturday morning I was with my kids in the Lego store in Melbourne when I got a text from a friend: “Someone is impersonating you on Facebook and running a scam to fleece your readers!”

Alarmed, I immediately called my assistant, and she was like: “Yeah, that happens all the time, it’s like whack-a-mole, Scott.”

Now the ads you’re looking at aren’t a blatant scam, but they may as well be.

Here’s their pitch, which is as old and smelly as my trusty Gray-Nicolls cricket box:

“So you want to get out of debt, right? Well, if you borrow a heap of money (through me) and buy some Gold Coast apartment (also through me, which I get a $50,000 kickback on), then when it (cough, cough) doubles in value, you’ll be able to pay off your home loan in just 7 to 10 years!”

It’s like a freaking Dr Seuss book.

“To get out of debt you’ve got to get into more debt. Debt, Debt, Debt!”

Tenille, focus on the two things that will really move the dial: getting a lower rate, and making extra repayments. Oh, and delete Facebook.

Scott.

Our Son-in-Law is a Nothing Burger

Hi Scott,

Our 48-year-old daughter was $2,000 away from paying off her house when her husband of 23 years told her that he had used the redraw facility attached to their housing loan to withdraw $150,000 to invest in a cryptocurrency scam! He has now left her with $5 in the bank and two young boys to support. It seems our daughter was too trusting way back (23 years ago) when the home loan was set up. Even though it was in both names, the redraw facility required only his signature.

It has been extremely stressful and embarrassing, and like a snowball as unpaid bills have rolled in. As retirees we now find ourselves with a second family to support. All avenues for help have been fruitless so far. Can you give us any advice? Also, please alert other trusting young wives that they must have two signatures on a redraw facility or they may find themselves in this same devastating situation.

Tania

Hey Tania

It sounds like your son-in-law is an addicted gambler.

The fact that he was caught up in a crypto scam is neither here nor there – it all ends the same way:

The scammer (or betting company) ends up with all the money, the punter is lumped with the losses, and tragically, as is the case with your daughter, there’s often an innocent partner who becomes collateral damage.

So what advice do I have?

She has two choices: work it out, or kick his arse to the curb.

If she chooses to stay with him, I’d suggest she insist he get professional counselling (call Gambler’s Help on 1800 858 858). If she’s not planning on staying with him, I’d get her to speak to a family lawyer and an accountant and set up plans for life as a single parent.

Yet I’ll tell you one thing that’s totally off the table: getting the money back. The horse hasn’t bolted, it’s dead. No amount of flogging your son-in-law will bring it back. At some point they have to put it behind them and move forward financially (together or apart).

Scott

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!

Video Killed the Radio Star

Hi Scott,

I know it is unlikely I will receive a reply but I feel compelled to let you know what an impact you have had on my 11-year-old daughter, Molly. Yesterday her aunt gifted her your new book. Molly devoured the book in one evening and by this afternoon had started a small business initiative to make dog treats and raise funds for the homeless.

We are fascinated by her enthusiasm and even more impressed by her presentation on investing (which I have shared with you). Thank you for hitting the nail on the head with this generation. I feel relieved to know that your book is teaching such valuable skills.

Mandy

Hi Mandy,

You not only made it to my inbox, you made it all the way to our family dinner table! We have a strict rule at our house: “No screens at dinner”. So when I sat down with an iPad my kids’ eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. Then I pressed play on Molly’s video … and they cheered for her. Seriously, she explained the concept of investing better than some highly paid investment analysts I know! Thanks so much for sharing it with me and the kids. It made our night.

Scott

The Bitcoin Babe

Dear Scott,

I have been trying to find a partner and get married for a while. Recently, I was matched with a guy on a dating app and we got to talking. He kept saying money is very important to him. He said he’d like a partner who is a ‘digital shepherd’ who would carry his phones and laptops and work from anywhere in the world. I’m an engineer, love my job, and don’t want to be a digital shepherd, yet the idea of having a husband got me interested.

He said he’d teach me to trade crypto, so I put $2,000 of my hard-earned money into the FTX Pro app.

After a while I got suspicious and said I’d like to do it either face to face (I have never met him) or stop and get my money back. He got very defensive and threatening, and told me I’d face consequences and he’d stop talking to me. I have reported him to cyber crime, and reported his profile on the dating app. But my money is still trapped in FTX Pro. How can I get it back?

Shyla

Hi Shyla

There is no way my answer is going to be anywhere near as entertaining as your question!

So, in summary, a random dude you met on the internet who told you he was looking for a shepherd … turned out to be a wolf. Don’t beat yourself up: you’re not the first person this has happened to, nor will you be the last!

Oh, and don’t feel bad about losing money to a scammer, either. Sequoia Capital is a legendary American fund manager that employs the smartest people in the world, including the very best graduates from Harvard, Stanford and Yale.

Well, these geniuses invested $US210 million ($A313 million) into the crypto exchange you used, FTX. FTX is run by 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried, hailed as the ‘next Warren Buffett’. Sequoia loved the fact that Sam played video games in their investment meetings instead of listening to them.

Well, it turns out Sam was also a wolf. This week his crypto exchange has collapsed, with billions in customer deposits apparently gone.

Who would’ve thought that a 30-year-old living in the Bahamas with a 10-person “drug-fuelled sexual polycule” (tip: don’t google that term on your work computer) would turn out to be a little wolfy?

Sequoia, meanwhile, has written down their $US210 million investment to $0.

I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect you might need to do the same.

Scott.

Taking on the bullies

Today, I’m going to show you how a kid rose up and beat his bullies.

Levi, 10 years old, was about to have the worst day of his life.

“Come up to the front and read to the class, Levi”, instructed his teacher.

He froze …

You see, Levi has dyslexia, which makes reading really difficult.

He could hear some of the kids in his class starting to laugh. After trying to get a few words out, he slunk back to his chair and put his head down so he couldn’t see the other kids.

After class, a group of boys cornered him:

“Why can’t you read? What’s wrong with you?”

Levi just stared at them.

“You are so dumb!” teased one of the boys, and then everyone burst out laughing.

But the next day in class something weird happened.

His teacher brought in a plastic ruler that had a blue see-through slit in the middle. Levi had never seen anything like it. She called it a ‘reading ruler’, and it worked like a moving highlighter, helping Levi focus on reading one line at a time.

It was the first thing that had ever really helped Levi read. So that night he rushed home and told his mum the good news.

Levi wanted a reading ruler of his very own, so he googled it. There was only one problem: different colours work better for different kids. And Levi couldn’t find the one he needed.

Frustrated, he turned to his mum and said, “I should get some reading rulers made and sell them to other kids who find reading hard like me”.

And so for the next six months Levi would come home from school and work on his business.

After searching online for ages, he tracked down a factory in China that made reading rulers. He ended up ordering 25 samples to start off with, and paid for them himself using his pocket money.

And then he did something he never thought he’d be able to do:

He built his own website (mydyslexiashop.com.au) and started selling them.

And he’s done pretty darned well; he’s now sold $6,000 worth of reading rulers.

Better yet, for every 10 rulers he sells he gives one away. “I give them away to people who don’t have money to buy them, and also to schools. That way kids who may not have enough courage to admit they need them can try them out”, he tells me.

Yet the most epic thing happened a few weeks after his first sale. Without him knowing it, Levi’s mum had emailed his teacher and told him about his success. So the teacher asked Levi to get up in front of the class and tell his classmates about it.

Guess what happened?

No one laughed.

Instead, everyone cheered and told him “That’s amazing!”

There was even a kid in his class who bought one – and so did his teacher!

Levi is a Barefoot Kid.

And he’s just one of 50 kids (aged 5 to 14) who appear in my new book, Barefoot Kids.

There are young kids. Older kids. Indigenous kids. City kids. Country kids.

I want every kid to be able to open up my book, look at the kids inside, and say to themselves:

“That kid’s just like me, I could do that.”

Tread Your Own Path!

You Got Played, Barefoot!

Hi Scott,

As an Optus and Medibank customer, I must have read thousands of words on the ‘hacks’. Thankfully, you cut through all the BS in your open letter to Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones offering a sensible solution. But I think you got played. You do realise that his response to you – “Sounds good. We’ll take a look.” – was a total fob-off!?

Eric

Hi Eric,

I have very low expectations when it comes to politicians … especially when I’m arguing against the financial interests of three multi-billion-dollar credit bureaus that employ expensive lobbyists. Still, if the Minister doesn’t have the cojones to stare down the lobbyists and stand up for the people who elected him, well, I think he’ll be the one who ultimately gets played.

Scott.