For many years now, my ‘go to’ present for my wife’s birthday has been a cookbook. As far as I am concerned, cookbooks tick all the boxes. They are simple to find and sold almost everywhere. They’re easy for me to wrap. They can be both expensive or inexpensive, depending on the occasion and my budget. And lastly, they might have been a gift for her, but I was also going to be a beneficiary when it was put to use. Recently however, it occurred to me that perhaps my fondness for cookbooks as gifts may have reached its limits. This came to mind as I happened to be looking at the entire bookcase of cookbooks which we have in our kitchen. It seemed hard to believe that there was a cookbook published in Australia which we did not own. Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals, Maggie Beer’s Summer Harvest, Luke Nguyen’s Songs of Sapa, and even Pete Evan’s weird paleo caveman diet book. We have them all.

What is interesting though, is that even with this veritable library of recipes on hand, there’s probably only about ten meals we tend to cycle through with regular predictability. They’re all the usual suspects: spaghetti bolognese, roast chicken, various forms of stir-frys, bbqs and the odd casserole. Nine times out of ten, dinner comes from one of those meals on that list. Yet mere feet away sits a treasure trove of carefully designed and worded recipes. Why weren’t we having mustard chicken with seasonal greens, dauphinoise and a black forest affogato? The reason of course, is that in the real world, nobody has the time to make those sorts of meals on a regular basis. Having a recipe book is one thing, having the required time, desire and skill is another. There are some obvious similarities with the investment process. You can buy many books on investing. If you’d prefer not to spend any money, the internet provides plenty of free investment ‘advice’. But do you have the time, desire and skill to be looking after your own retirement? Navigating the murky waters of global financial markets? Weighing up the relative strengths and merits of literally thousands of investment alternatives? For some people, it’s a resounding yes, but for most of us such an approach is either too boring, or worse, too risky. For it’s one thing to pull out the recipe book and make an absolute mess of the croque en bouche – your family may laugh, but it’s unlikely to end up with you losing your house. The same mistake, however, with your savings or superannuation, could have very severe implications. No need for fancy cookbooks when all you can afford is bread and potatoes.