TPC Gold | What We Love (and Don’t) About the Barefoot Investor’s Advice

This snippet is from one of our previous episodes: Q&A: Barefoot Investor or MoneySMARTS – What’s the Difference, Loan Structure for Rentvestors, Pros & Cons of Buying a Company Title Property and more! 

The Barefoot Investor has helped thousands of Australians take control of their finances—but when it comes to property investing, it’s no surprise that we don’t quite see eye to eye. 🤔 

In this TPC Gold soundbite, we break down where our MoneySMARTS system aligns with Scott Pape’s approach and where we strongly disagree—especially when it comes to: 

🏡 Property investing—Is it really a “dud investment,” or is there more to the story?
💰 Offset accounts—Why we believe they’re a crucial tool for wealth creation
📈 Long-term financial strategies—Where our philosophies differ and why it matters for your financial future 

Scott Pape has done an incredible job simplifying personal finance, but when it comes to property, our strategies take a different path.  

Don’t Just Take Our Word for It—Decide for Yourself!

📖 Check out our book, Make Money Simple Again —your step-by-step guide to managing money, trapping surplus cash, and building long-term wealth, without the stress of constant budgeting. 

👉 Get your copy of Make Money Simple Again 

New to The Property Couch?

We’ve put together the Binge Guide, a curated list of must-listen episodes to fast-track your knowledge on property, finance, and money management. 

📥 Download your FREE Binge Guide 

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If You Enjoyed TPC Gold | What We Love (and Don’t) About the Barefoot Investor’s Advice, You Might Also Like:

• Ep 267 | The Unorthodox Twist To The MoneySMARTS System & Why It STILL Works 
• Ep 361 | When Is It Too Late To Get Into Property?  
• Ep 486 | “Stuff This!”: How to Tackle Financial Anxiety 

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Transcript

Bryce Holdaway
Now the last one is from David, who’s a multiple contributor Ben.

Ben Kingsley
Love it, love the multiple contributors.

Bryce Holdaway
Appreciate you coming on board and asking us some more questions. Have a listen to this one, folks.

David
Hey guys, Dave here. Today, I wanted to talk to you about the elephant in the room or at least the bear in the room. I just finished listening to the Barefoot Investor audiobook and it’s safe to say I am a little bit confused. While Scott’s money management message seems to align with yourselves, Mojo and fire extinguishers is a far cry from MoneySMARTS. And then came a bombshell: property investing is a dud investment. And yes, as he suggested, my eye was twitching. Scott had some pretty negative things to say about property, particularly over the long term, mainly that the past 24 years has been an economical outlier given the negative gearing benefits and large population growth due to baby boomers. Suggesting that “doubling in every 7-10 years” rule, which of course is a rule of thumb, over the next 40 years would be near on impossible. Then he counteracted his whole argument with compelling evidence of strong long-term growth in bonds, shares and index funds. Now don’t get me wrong, I took some really good nuggets out of his book, but the differences from your methods and his are starkly different. I mean, he doesn’t even suggest putting money in offsets. Can you please help me decipher this book? Thanks guys, love your work. Cheers.

Bryce Holdaway
Hey David, thank you for that question. And first of all, I want to acknowledge a couple of things. Scott Pape has two bestselling books in the top 10; have been for some time. And I think that he’s changed the landscape for the positive with most of what he has to say.

Ben Kingsley
We love that.

Bryce Holdaway
Now clearly a couple of things, cause we often get people when we’ve got our Make Money Simple Again book. They say haven’t you just sort of copied what Scott’s already done? And so couple of things on that. One, we’ve been helping clients use the MoneySMARTS well before his book was ever published. So that’s number one. And number two, I think we’re in alignment on a lot of things within his book as well. So I think the overall picture of Scott Pape bringing that to market with his book is clearly a success. It’s clearly people have got an appetite for it and clearly shows that money management is something that people really want to get a handle on. And for the better part, the way that he structures using Mojo and fire extinguishers and all that. It’s just a fun, cute way for people to really break down the complexity of money and sort of chart the direction that they’re going. But I think you’ve highlighted a couple of things that we differ on and we unashamedly differ on. And that’s the fact that we’ve got a starkly different view on property investment in the landscape. And one of the, it’s the major question when, you know, whenever we’re interviewed or asked about the difference between his book and ours, we say, well, we think that the role that an offset account plays within your overall money management system is a critical role. And for those that are familiar with the MoneySMARTS system know that’s our primary account. We see that as an optimal strategy to make sure you pay the minimum amount of interest, all those sorts of things. So I guess, Ben, as a backdrop, we are rowing in the same direction as Scott with his wonderfully successful book. But those two things around, we’ve clearly got a different view on investing in property. And the fact that we strongly, we think that MoneySMARTS isn’t a system without an offset account. They’re the two critical pieces that we differ on.

Ben Kingsley
Yeah, yeah, no, hear hear to Scott and his team at the Barefoot Investor community because, you know, he’s on the same crusade as us and that’s helping people organise their money.

Bryce Holdaway
Organise their money better.

Ben Kingsley
In terms of ultimately how they choose to invest that, he’s got a view which is different to ours. So, and I loved his book, I thought it was really good. It’s a very good “what to do” book. And when I see research coming out from banks such as UBank and all that in terms of, you know, one in five have no clear picture of their financial situation. So only one in five have an idea, the other 80% have no idea about their finances, a book like that to at least get you to sort of say, you know what, this money thing is not that complicated if you organise your money. Well, that’s pretty much what we’re saying.

Bryce Holdaway
We’re talking about making it not a taboo, discuss it at the table by the way that he’s structured it means that people are having conversations about it so he’s done a terrific job.

Ben Kingsley
Our book’s more of an instruction manual on a rules-based money management system that absolutely uses an offset account because ultimately we’re writing it for people who are going to invest and if they’re going to invest in bricks and mortar that offset functionality gives me far more flexibility and long-term returns than trying to get the cheapest no-frills loan that gives me none of that flexibility at all. So again, I think if I was to say Scott’s books is the beginner’s book in terms of trying to help anyone who’s learning.

Bryce Holdaway
It’s a conversation starter.

Ben Kingsley
It’s really great. It’s a great book. And then our book is a little bit more, you know, for the more sophisticated money manager who wants to make sure that they’re trapping that surplus and the same sort of thing, because ultimately we say that when you invest in property, you’re going to use leverage. So we are definitely for that more advanced investor than someone who’s saying, I’ll just contribute an extra hundred dollars a month to my super, you know, and hope that that gets me where I want to get to. So the people who are investing in property are saying the journey that I want from my returns have got to be significant compared to paying debt off or investing in basic superannuation policies. So that’s our story.

Bryce Holdaway
So there you go folks, but we do get a number of questions around that.

Ben Kingsley
All the time.

Bryce Holdaway
So in general principle, we’re rowing in the same direction. We just deviate a little bit towards the end as to which destination we want to be in.