I’m reading the 1920s classic, The Richest Man in Babylon. I liked it: simple wisdom that’s easy to overlook today. I’d recommend it to anyone.
It may well have inspired books like The Wealthy Barber and Rich Dad Poor Dad.
Here are excerpts from two of my favorite chapters.
Seven cures for a lean purse
Step 1: Start Thy Purse to Fattening. For each ten coins you earn, spend only nine.
Step 2: Control Thy Expenditures. Budget your expenses so you can pay for necessities, enjoyments, and worthwhile desires without spending more than nine-tenths of your earnings.
Step 3: Make Thy Gold Multiply. Put each coin to labor so that it may reproduce its kind.
Step 4: Guard Thy Treasures from Loss. Invest only where the principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if you desire, and where you will collect a fair rental.
Step 5: Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment. Own your own home.
Step 6: Insure a Future Income. Provide in advance for your later years and for your family.
Step 7: Increase Thy Ability to Earn. Cultivate your powers, study and become wiser, grow more skillful, and respect yourself.
The five laws of gold
1. The First Law of Gold
“Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.”
2. The Second Law of Gold
“Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.”
3. The Third Law of Gold
“Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.”
4. The Fourth Law of Gold
“Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.”
5. The Fifth Law of Gold
“Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.”