The Richest Man in Babylon

Points clés

• Keep at least a tenth of everything you earn, and set it aside before you spend
• Make saved money work through safe investments and reinvest whatever it earns
• Invest only where your principal is safe and take advice from people who know the field
• Escape debt with a fixed split: 70% to live, 20% to repay, 10% to save
• Your earning power is your biggest asset, so keep sharpening your skills

À l'intérieur de ce bit

1. Wealth is a habit, not a windfall

   Two friends in ancient Babylon, a chariot builder and a musician, sit in the dust wondering why years of hard work have left them with nothing. They decide to ask Arkad, the richest man in the city, how he did it.

2. Pay yourself first

   Arkad's founding rule is that a tenth of everything you earn belongs to you, and it must be set aside before anyone else is paid. Most people pay the landlord, the grocer and the tailor, then save what is left, which is nothing.

3. Make your gold work and guard it

   Saving alone only fills a jar. Clason's next lesson is that each coin should become a worker that earns more coins, and those earnings should be put to work too.

4. Escape debt with a simple split

   One of the strongest parables follows Dabasir, a camel trader who fled his debts, ended up enslaved, and returned home determined to pay everyone back. His method is a budget in three parts.

5. Grow your ability to earn

   Clason's last cure for a thin purse is the one people forget: increase what you are capable of earning. In one story a scribe learns to carve clay tablets faster than his peers and is soon paid more.

6. Passez à l'action

   Start this week by moving 10% of your next salary into an account you do not touch, and make the transfer automatic so it happens before you see the money. Write a plain list of your monthly spending and cut the items you would not miss; Clason's Babylonians found that most desires fade once written down.