Warning:
There’s a good chance you’re going to hate what I’m about to write.
I’m okay with that.
This week I got an email from a bloke I’ll call Barry, who put the boots into me good and proper:
“I’m sick of your crap. You have no idea how hard it is for normal people like me. I’m 49 years old. Three kids. I earn $87,000 a year. We have an $800,000 home loan and the Reserve Bank is punishing us with higher rates. I can barely afford to fill my second-hand Mazda to get to work. Our groceries have gone up $100 a week. The game is rigged for people like me. Everyone is against us. Your buckets and compound interest only work if you have money to put in them. I’m not 18, I’m nearly 50. Wake up.”
(For the record, I don’t mind a bloke sticking the boots into me. I’ve built a career on it.)
I’ve pissed you off, haven’t I, Baz?
Good!
Come on, cobber. No one put a shovel to your head and forced you to take out an $800,000 loan.
And there was nothing in your wife’s tarot cards that said “Interest rates will never go up”.
Come to think of it, I’ve been saying this in my column for, well, years?
Now the easiest thing I could do right now is what every other finance commentator has done this week and point the angry stick at the heartless Reserve Bank, the record spending government, the greedy supermarkets and the gouging oil companies.
And yes, Barry, there is plenty to point at. But none of it will help you pay a single bill.
You still get to choose where your energy goes.
You can burn it on interest rates, petrol prices and grocery bills, all the stuff you can’t control. Or you can put it to work.
I am not saying you caused your situation.
I am saying you are responsible for what happens next.
You’re 49. You’re not dead, dude!
You’re old enough to know better – and still young enough to fix it.
You’ve got 15 years to turn this around. I reckon you can do it in 10:
I’d set up my Barefoot Buckets properly and get serious about filling them. Every extra dollar gets a job. That might mean selling stuff, taking on extra work, or doing the jobs you have been putting off – selling your kidney (or the cat) on Marketplace if you have to. Kidding. Probably.
And I would make a plan to earn more, starting now and over the next 10 years. You are not stuck. Plenty of people lift their income over time. It takes effort, a bit of strategy, and sticking at it longer than feels comfortable, but it is doable.
None of this fixes things overnight.
When we lost everything in a bushfire, the place was black. Burnt. It stank. It was overwhelming. So we planted an apple tree. Not because it fixed anything. It didn’t. But it was a start. You don’t fix a mess like that in a day.
You just start.
Then you show up again tomorrow.
Tread Your Own Path!