Book Review #17 for 2019: The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Stop reading this, go to your favourite online book store and buy this book — no seriously, do it, you will thank yourself later.

I have been deeply interested in and spent a lot of time on learning about how to best run my family’s personal finances. This book is lightyears ahead of anything else that I have come across over the years.

Pape is an absolute genius when it comes to personal finance structuring and has managed to deliver what is often a really difficult, complex and emotionally loaded subject with hilarity, fun, ease and courageous honesty.

While the book is aimed at the Australian market and does contain a lot of Australian specific references, it is worth noting that I first read this and started implementing the principles when I still lived in South Africa and I still got huge benefit.

The take home value for me is that Pape has figured out and offers a structure to help people take control of their personal finances by largely removing the need for huge amounts of self discipline and control that most other models require. By removing the self discipline elements, the chances of prolonged success are drastically increased.

The process requires a fair amount of work upfront (anything that is valuable does) but once it’s setup it is incredibly effective and pretty much runs itself.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. From basic wage earners through to C-suite executives this book should be compulsory reading for anyone that cares about how their personal finances are run.