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Review: The richest man in Babylon

Posted on:September 6, 2022 at 02:31 PM

TLDR

Rating: 4.5

I think this is a good book to get started into personal finance. It talks in a very generic way, so if you’re looking for specific ideas, this might not be your book. I also think if you need to take some takeaways from this book is the power of saving and budgeting.

Save and budgeting

Gold comes 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

To kickstart the process of transforming your finance, you need to save! The book recommends at least 10% of your income, you also need to pay yourself first, before paying to the clothemaker, sandalmaker. This will allow you to save some capital and start investing.

Investing

Once we have managed to accumulate some wealth, our next wisest thing to do it is to find some profitable ways to multiply it:

Gold labours diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying like the flocks of the field.

Always remembering to only invest in business that we know well or under the advice of people familiar with the business sector, we don’t want to be like Algamish (One of the characters in the book) that lost his money by trusting a brickmaker to buy for him jewelry

Gold slips 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.

Risk

Another take away from the book is about risk, play safe with your money, those who take unnecessary risk or follow get-rich schemas are more likely to lose their money

Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who follows the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.

Prepare for the future

It is important to always remember that you will not always be as strong as you are right now and that you need to prepare for those days, so you can ensure a proper life for you and your family, by investing making investments that endure safely for many years.

The book suggests traditional considered :safe investments: like: