Pay yourself first. A tenth of everything you earn is not yours to spend — it is the seed of your independence.
What the book is
Clason's parables of ancient Babylon, written in the 1920s as a set of pamphlets for ordinary working men. The archaic voice is a device; underneath it are the simplest and most durable rules of personal finance ever compressed into a hundred pages.
The core discipline
Save at least a tenth of everything you earn before anything else touches it. Control expenditure so that necessary expenses do not expand to swallow income. Make gold work — put savings where they multiply. Guard against loss by taking advice only from men competent in the matter at hand.
How it lands on a modern man
Nothing here requires a high income, which is why it works. Automate the tenth so willpower is never consulted. The failure mode it predicts is the one most men live: rising income, rising expenses, and nothing kept. What you keep is the only part of your earnings that was ever yours.
The marrow
- Pay yourself first — at least a tenth, automatically.
- Necessary expenses expand to consume income unless controlled.
- Put savings to work; idle money is a slow loss.
- Take counsel only from the competent.