The Barefoot Investor has warned a father not to quit his $400,000-a-year job after he admitted he had been considering leaving to spend more time with his family.
Ned wrote to Scott Pape to ask if he should leave his lucrative job to spend more time with his children, home-schooling them in rural Tasmania.
The father said he was reflecting on “what I do and why” after recently turning 40 and realizing his job had taken him away from his children while “ironically, trying to provide them with a better life.”
He described his career as ‘high risk, high responsibility, high time demands… that has dragged my wife and four children around the world.’
While the job has helped the family own two homes and a “decent stock portfolio,” Ned said he was considering quitting to be more present.
“Am I crazy to want to throw away this job (and possibly his real estate future) to homeschool my kids and be part of the best years of their lives?” she asked Mr. Pape.
‘Should I earn and save as much as possible to help them get settled later? Are there things that are worth more than the collateral?’
Mr. Pape warned Ned not to quit his job to homeschool his children, but instead urged him to talk to his employer and find a better work-life balance.
Barefoot investor Scott Pape (pictured) was asked by a father if he was crazy to quit his $400,000-a-year job to spend more time with his kids.
The barefoot investor told Ned that his salary indicated that he was a “very valuable” person to his employer and that he needed to “start acting like one.”
“Tell them you want to be able to come home and be present with your kids and not be stressed,” she wrote in her weekly. Newscorp Column.
‘That may mean you take on less responsibility and earn less money. That’s okay.
‘Twenty years from now, the only people who will remember you working late will be your children.
“Remember that you are a valuable person to your organization, but you are more valuable to your family.”
Mr Pape added that he had come to the same conclusion years earlier and explained that this was the reason he had not expanded his business into more “lucrative” ventures.
He said he was living in his family’s “good old days,” which were passing by too quickly.
While the job helped the family become financially independent, the father said he realized he had missed out on large parts of his children’s lives (file image)
Mr. Pape also shared some heartfelt advice for Ned about prioritizing “just hanging out” with his kids rather than simply taking them on “vacation to Disneyland.”
But to do that, Ned would have to “be at home and not in the office” while also being “mentally present… not on the phone or worrying about what’s going on at the office.”
