The best question this year

‍How cool is this?

On Tuesday an eight-year-old named Molly filled out the “Ask Barefoot” form on my website:

“My parents won’t allow me to buy shares, and it makes me feel so sad. Please help me! Molly”

Molly could’ve been on Roblox. Or Netflix. Instead she’s on my website, asking about money.

(Under annual income she wrote: $100.)

Well Molly, you’ve shot to the top of my pile. By the end of this not only will you own your first shares… you and I will have taught your parents a lesson that changes their lives.

Here’s the thing about Mum and Dad. They’re probably a bit scared of the share market. Most adults are. Nobody taught them this at school, so it feels risky and confusing.

Your mission is to teach them… tonight, over dinner.

First, print off the 2026 Vanguard Index Chart. Google it. It’s free, and it’s the ‘Mona Lisa’ of money.

Source

While you eat your broccoli, ask your parents:

“How old were you two 30 years ago?”

Chances are they were about your age.

Now show them the chart. It tracks what $10,000 in 1996 would be worth today if you’d invested it in different things.

Left in cash it becomes $32,459.

Put into Aussie shares, it becomes $132,931.

The difference? A hundred grand!

“But what if we invest and it crashes like your uncle Derrick is always warning about?” they’ll ask.

Great question. Let’s play a game.

Imagine you’re the unluckiest investor in the country. Vanguard actually ran the numbers on this.

You invest $10,000 into a mix of local and global index funds … right before the dot-com crash.

Another $10,000 … right before the Global Financial Crisis.

And the last $10,000 … right before Covid hits.

Every time, you buy at the absolute peak. Thirty grand at the three worst moments in a generation.

So how did you do?

Today it’s worth $117,000.

Yet if you kept it in cash it would only be worth $54,000.

(And let’s be honest, most of that cash would have disappeared on holidays, renovations, and “just this once” spending.)

The worst-timed investor in Australia still doubled the one who “played it safe”.

Yes, things went wrong. Covid. Dot-com. The GFC. Uncle Derrick will keep warning you about the next disaster until the day he dies. The trick is to look at what quietly went right.

You’ve done three things. You taught your parents something. You learned the best way to learn anything… by teaching it. And you flicked on the most powerful force in the universe: compound interest.

Google “Aussie investing apps for kids”, then get your parents to download one and buy some shares (called index funds) for you. You can start with as little as $5. And remind your parents they can invest some of their money too! Why should you have all the fun?

Before you ask to leave the table, ask one last question to make your parents squirm.

“How old will you be in 30 years?”

You’ll be 38, Molly. Wealthy. And only just getting started.

Your parents?

They’ll be pushing 70… still wondering if they should have started earlier.

The truth?

This was never a column about an eight-year-old.

It’s about you.

The one reading this on your phone, or in the paper, or while you’re meant to be doing something else. You’ve got the chart. You’ve got the proof. You’ve got an eight-year-old who’s already braver than most adults.

So what the hell are you waiting for?

Tread Your Own Path!

---

Your Questions & Answers

• Paralysed with Fear

• The $5 Million Accountant

---

Paralysed with Fear

Hi Scott,

I’m 42 years old. Two years ago my husband left, giving me 100% care of our two kids. We're immigrants with no family here. I was never allowed to handle our finances. Any question made him angry, as if I were attacking him. He earned $300k a year but still ran up $53k in credit card debt.

After the settlement I received around $400k. I stared at that number for months, paralysed. Then I read your book and put it into high-yield accounts. I now work part-time on a low wage, with single-parent tax benefits. My super is only $13k. His child support covers the rent on our one-bedroom unit. It's getting small as the kids grow, but they're in a great school and we've finally found community and belonging. I won't pull them out to save money.

I sit on the cash, because if the child support stops we have no way to survive. My only plan B is to buy a studio, so we have a roof. That means nothing for super, nothing for shares. Am I okay or am I crazy to just sit on it until the kids are old enough to be financially independent adults? It is about 25 years left for my 3 years old to be able to take care of himself.

Indra

Hi Indra,

You are not crazy.

You’re a single mum in a foreign land with no family and no backstop. You’ve suffered financial abuse and betrayal. So you chose safety for you and your kids. That makes complete sense to me.

Yet here’s the thing I want you to see. He’s still controlling you. You’re squeezing your family into a one-bedroom unit and sitting on $400,000 of your own money because you’re scared of what he might do.

Screw him.

That money is yours. Spend some of it on renting a place that actually fits your family. It doesn’t need to be flash, but it does need to be big enough that you live comfortably.

If you were my sister, here’s what I’d tell you.

Get yourself so damned secure you’re bulletproof.

You don’t have to solve the next 25 years today. Just take the next step.

For the next few years, your best return will come from investing in yourself. Get a qualification or training that moves you into higher-paid work.

I know what you’re thinking. As a single working parent there aren’t enough hours in the day. So use some of the money to buy time. A babysitter or a cleaner. Free yourself up to focus on building your career.

While you’re at it, sort out your super and make sure you have income protection, disability and life cover through the fund. Your super is the one thing that’s just for you. And you don’t have to carry the kids until they’re 28. Eighteen is enough.

Do this and in a few years your income will be growing. You’ll be able to buy a home of your own. And you’ll have the financial safety you need.

Indra, you may doubt that you can do this.

I have no doubts whatsoever.

You know why?

Because I see a woman with grit whose kids are in a great school, in a community where they belong. You did that.

Your kids are watching. They’re getting a masterclass in grit from the strongest person they know.

That’s the real inheritance.

You’ve got this.

---

The $5 Million Accountant

Scott,

My dad spent a lifetime building an accountancy practice and delivering sage, safe advice. When he sold his practice he was going through the emotional upheaval of retirement, but he didn't talk it out with a counsellor. Instead he got hooked by a highly sophisticated crypto scam, with a legit-appearing front.

He has handed over in excess of $5 million to them (details are not clear, he is very unwilling to divulge). This would be the proceeds from selling his business, and devastatingly, his house. 

We thought he was out of it. He told us that he had received a sum back, and that he would secure his accommodation, but he's just started (again) asking for money. He thinks that a few thousandthousands would get him his money back. The whole family has urged him to report to the authorities and file for bankruptcy. I think he is too deeply in denial, as he's continuing to insist that he is not bankrupt.

Kate

Hi Kate,

That is absolutely horrific.

I’m so sorry this happened to your dad.

You said that your dad received a “sum back”. That’s the equivalent of a $1 pokie machine ‘winning’ 10 cents: they’ve already stolen $5 million from him. They won’t stop until he goes bankrupt. Even then they’ll keep going trying to squeeze the last few bucks out of him. I’ve seen them steal the insurance payout from a terminal brain cancer patient.

These people are evil.

More than 80% of Australians received at least one scam attempt in the last year, according to the ABS.

They’re so prevalent that we all know someone who’s lost money. Yet it’s not just the money that gets lost. People get robbed of their sense of self worth … and they often lose their will to live. 

Your father needs proper support and counselling right now, and more than ever. The money is gone. What matters is that he’s still here. That’s the one thing left to protect.

The only way you can defeat evil is with unconditional love.

Thanks for reading,

Scott.

Cornered, cranky and ready to charge

My wife is currently in Africa filming a documentary about rhinos.

Which means I’m home alone on the farm with four kids. The wild Savannah has nothing on this.

“The teachers said Book Week is coming up”, announced my eight-year old daughter over dinner.

“I want to go as The Cat in the Hat!” squealed my five-year-old.

My nostrils flared. In that moment I felt a bit like a rhino myself: cornered, cranky, and ready to charge.

“You’re all going as … me”, I declared. “We’ve got the books. The checked shirts. And you can all take turns with Lucky the sheepdog.”

“But Daaad.”

Then my phone rang. It was Wally, my editor.

“Did you hear? The Prime Minister quoted you in Parliament today. He basically read your last column out word for word.”

“Wally”, I said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“After 22 years working with you”, he replied, “I can confidently say I am almost certainly not.”

Here’s what I was thinking.

If the Prime Minister likes my column so much, let’s see if he’ll read this one out in Parliament.

I looked around the kitchen at my four little rhinos, one still wearing mashed potato on his snout. Their mum is over in Africa because there are men who slaughter rare, defenceless animals just because there’s money in it.

Well, we’ve got poachers here too. Except they’re not hunting rhinos … they’re hunting our kids.

They’re the betting companies.

They use the thing kids (particularly boys) love – sport – to groom them into gambling. Logos on the jersey. Ads on the TV. And odds in their ears before they’re old enough to shave.

Jackpot!

Per head, we lose more money on gambling than any other nation on earth.

Albo, I don’t have the money that the gambling lobbyists do to host a private donors’ dinner with you.

Yet let me tell you, Book Week is about kids dressing up as characters from a story, but the real story this week is the one our current gambling laws are letting them walk into.

It sure looks like you’re not on the right side of the debate. Otherwise you’d treat these punting poachers like the cigarette companies. You’d ban them from sport completely. No jerseys. No stadiums. No ads at the footy.

Albo, I’m totally outnumbered here at home. My wife has flown to the other side of the world to stand between the poachers and something that couldn’t fight back. You could protect my rhinos and you wouldn’t even have to leave the building.

Tread Your Own Path!

---

Your Questions & Answers

• I’ll Never Read You Again

• The Accountant Who Can’t Sleep

• The Most Expensive Currency On Earth

---

I’ll Never Read You Again

Scott,

You must be so proud that Albanese mentioned you in Parliament. Are you joining his party? I think I’ll just read the other finance experts in the Sunday Telegraph. Very disappointed in you.

Chris

Hey Chris,

Your email reads like one of those notes Timmy Tuffknuckles used to lob at the back of my head in Grade 3. You must have missed that the Prime Minister actually said that Barefoot is “not always part of a cheer squad for the Government”.

True, Mister Speaker!

Especially when it comes to his monumentally dumb and dangerous 5% Deposit Scheme, which I’ve been campaigning against for years. Seriously, the only cheer squad I’m in is for financial counselling and our clients. (Okay, and the Melbourne Demons.)

As Mrs Wilson used to say to Timmy:

“Eyes to the front. Hands above the desk where I can see them.”

---

The Accountant Who Can’t Sleep

Scott

I grew up watching money stress eat my family alive. As a kid I knew the mortgage was always one bad month away from disaster. So I did what any trauma-trained over achiever does: I worked from age 14, put money towards keeping a roof over my family’s head, became a chartered accountant, and bought my first property just before I turned 30.

I did everything right. One-bedroom apartment in Rosehill, NSW. Five percent deposit, LMI waived, First Home Buyer Scheme. I was proud of myself. Three years later, I’ve paid $90,000 in interest to the bank. The property has gone up, maybe, $30,000. The metro stop they promised nearby? Cancelled.

I rent somewhere else with my boyfriend. The apartment is tenanted at $580 a week and I’m keeping it partly as a safety net for my mum and brothers if they ever need it. But I keep running the numbers in my head at 2am. If I’d just rented and tipped that money into an S&P 500 index fund, would I be ahead right now? Is the Australian property dream still worth it for single-income buyers – or are we just paying a fortune in interest to feel safe?

Tammy

Hi Tammy,

You’re going to be fine.

You can turn on the lights and you’ll see there’s nothing bad lurking in the closet.

From what you’ve told me, you could sell this apartment and probably break even. That’s a much better spot to be in than a lot of people who stretch themselves on a 5% deposit end up in. For them the nightmare is real, and it never ends.

Now, the 2am maths:

Stop doing them.

You can’t go back in time, only forward.

However, in order to sleep soundly you need to understand how you got yourself into this situation.

And it’s completely understandable: you grew up watching your parents struggle with money. You swore you wouldn’t follow them. So you bought a place before you should have, and tried to make the numbers fit afterwards.

The real lesson from your parents wasn’t ‘buy a property’.

It was to ‘be financially secure’.

You’re clearly a smart, driven person. You’ll hit whatever you aim at. Just make sure it’s the right target this time.

---

The Most Expensive Currency On Earth

Hi Scott,

I read your book while I was in prison. It was the first time in my life I had so much "free time": eating without paying, not worrying about rent. Of course, taxpayers paid for it. I paid with something far more valuable: time. The most expensive currency there is.

When I was at my most vulnerable, I became addicted to something I didn’t even recognise at first: other people’s approval. Trying to fill that emptiness led me to the worst decision of my life: transporting drugs. I was punished for it, and rightly so. I read almost every book in the women’s prison library in Perth. Yours was one of only two books I bought after my release.

English isn’t my first language. I grew up during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and I was deported back to Europe just as the world shut down because of Covid. I arrived home alone with about $1,000 I had earned working in prison. After three-and-a-half years behind bars, I had no job, no plan, and no idea who I was anymore. My family and many of the friends I thought would always be there disappeared when I got into legal trouble. I felt like a stranger in my own country.

Then I met my partner. Now we live in Denmark. Six years into my freedom, I’m still rebuilding. I adopted some of the habits from your book, opened a Mojo account, have Date Nights with my partner, understand how to do investments. Now I’m doing an internship that will hopefully lead to paid opportunities as well.

What I really wanted to say is this: your book kept me sane. Today I’m once again facing financial uncertainty. But every time I see your book on my shelf I feel calmer. It reminds me that this season is temporary. Every face has a story, and every story has a face. And I just wanted you to know that your words mattered. They helped someone you will probably never meet.

Eleanor

Hey Eleanor,

English may not be your first language, but you certainly have a way with words.

When I was training to be a financial counsellor, one of my first placements was at a women’s prison. It was a bloody tough gig. The women I worked with were racked with shame and guilt, and for many of them it stopped them from making any financial progress.

And my motivation wasn’t just for the women inside. It was for their kids, and for the rest of us on the outside, because someone who walks out with a plan and a Mojo account is a lot less likely to walk back in.

Here’s what I learned from my time working on the inside.

You can keep judging yourself for the terrible choices you made a long time ago. But all that does is keep you locked in a different kind of prison, one you’ll never be released from.

Or you can judge yourself by the actions you take today. And look at what you’ve done. You’ve rebuilt yourself from a thousand bucks and a library card. You’ve got a partner, Date Nights and an internship to show for it.

You’re right, Eleanor, seasons are temporary.

Bring on summer, I say.

Thank you for reading!

 Scott.