The Barefoot Investor: The Only Money Guide You'll Ever Need

Warren Buffett says you should treat your investments like groceries: ‘If you go to the supermarket and there's a sale on, and prices are lower — well, if you're smart — you'll stock up and buy more … The stock market is really just a giant supermarket.'

Yet our massive debts are just a symptom of the real problem: our out-of-control spending. Did you know that Australians on average live in the biggest homes in the world? Our supersized McMansions are 10 per cent bigger than the Yanks' (our nearest competitor in the battle of the housing bulge).

Your Mojo Bucket, however, now sits inside your Grow Bucket. And what's more, it will go from having three months of living expenses to three years of living expenses. Huh? Sounds like a lot of money, right?

I tried to screw down the same deal with my home loan provider as ING's zero-fee banking (especially the zero ATM fees). They just laughed at me. So I made ING Orange Everyday my ‘Money HQ' and organised a direct debit to my home loan.

It's the Hostplus Indexed Balanced Fund, and it charges a tiny investment management fee of 0.02 per cent. In other words, 2 cents for every $100 invested (plus a $78 a year admin fee).

In his book Affluenza, author Clive Hamilton states: Sixty-two per cent of Australians believe they cannot afford to buy everything they really need. When we consider that Australia is one of the world's richest countries and that Australians today have incomes three times higher than in 1950, it is remarkable that so many

There are only two ways to pay your mortgage off more quickly: Lower your interest rate. Make extra repayments.

lot about life and money from my grandparents — they were part of the so-called Silent Generation who lived (and thrived) through the not-so-Great Depression. What did that mean in a practical sense? Well, they paid their bills on time … with cash. They saved their money … rather than relying on credit cards. They didn't expect handouts … being on

Yet their findings were puzzling. The people they interviewed had high incomes, but they were asset poor. Worse, they were drowning in debt. In other words, they were ‘all show and no dough'.