“If you have not acquired more than a bare existence in the years we were youths, it is because you have either have failed to learn the laws that govern the building of wealth or else you did not observe them.”
“Fickle fate is a notion that doesn’t bring permanent good to anyone. One the contrary, those who acquire unearned gold soon spend all they receive and are left with overwhelming appetites and desires they have not the ability to gratify. Yet others become misers and hoard their wealth, afraid to spend what they have, knowing they do not possess the ability to replace it. They are further beset by fear of robbers and doom themselves to lives of emptiness and secret misery.”
“There are probably others who can take unearned goes and add it and continue to be happy and contented citizens. But they are so few in number, I know of them only by hearsay. Think of the men you know who have inherited sudden wealth, and see if what I say is not so.”
The Richest Man in Babylon tells his system
Pay yourself first.
A part of all you earn is yours to keep. It should not be less than a tenth no matter how little you earn. It can be as much more as you can afford. Pay yourself first. Do not buy from the clothing store and the shoemaker more than you can pay out of the rest and still have enough left over for food and charity and penance to God.
Wealth, like a tree, grows from a tiny seed. The first copper you save is the seed from which your tree of wealth will grow. The sooner you plant the seed, the sooner the tree can grow. And the more faithfully you nourish and water that tree with consistent savings, the sooner may you bask in contentment under its shade.
Insure an income for your future.
Remember that one day you too will be numbered among the aged. Therefore invest your treasure with great caution so that it will not be lost.
Provide also for your family so that they will not be lacking should you pass away. You can provide such protection by putting aside small payments at regular intervals. The prudent man will not delay in expectation of a large sum becoming available for such a wise purpose.
Consult with wise men.
Seek the advice of men whose daily work is handling money. Let them save you from errors such as those I made myself in entrusting my money to the judgment of Azmur, the brick maker. A small and safe return is far more desirable than a risk.
Enjoy life while you are here. Don’t overstrain or try to save too much. If one-tenth of all you earn is as much as you can comfortably keep, be content with that portion. Otherwise, live according to your income and don’t be afraid to spend it. Life is good and life is rich with things worthwhile and things to enjoy.
The Seven Remedies for a Lean Purse
Start fattening your purse
For every ten coins, you place in your purse, take out but nine for use. Your purse will start to fatten at once and its increasing weight will feel good in your hands and bring satisfaction to yourself.
Do not ridicule what I say because of its simplicity. The truth is always simple. I told you I would share how I built my fortune. This was my beginning. I, too, carried a lean purse and cursed it because there was nothing in it to satisfy my desires. But when I began to take out from my purse only nine parts out of ten I put in, it began to fatten. So will yours.
Control your expenditures
Some earn much more than others. Some have much larger families to support. Yet, all purses were equally lean. Now I will tell you an unusual truth about men and sons of men. It is this: That what each of us calls our necessary expenses will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.
Do not confuse your necessary expenses with your desires. Each of you, together with your good families, has more desires than your earnings can gratify. Therefore, your earnings are spent to gratify these desires insofar as they will go. And still, you might have many ungratified desires.
All men are burdened with more desires than they can gratify. Because of my wealth, do you think I can gratify every desire? This is a false idea. There are limits to my time. There are limits to my strength. There are limits to the distance I can travel. There are limits to what I can eat. There are limits to the zest with which I can enjoy.
I say to you that just as weeds grow in a field wherever the farmer leaves space for their roots to take hold, so do desires grow in men whenever there is a possibility of their being gratified. Your desires are many, yet those you can gratify are but few.
Thoughtfully study your accustomed habits of living – herein are most often found certain accepted expenses that can wisely be reduced or eliminated. Let your motto be 100% of the appreciated value demanded each coin spent.
Thus, engrave on your clay the things upon which you wish to spend. Select those things that are necessary and those that are possible through the expenditure of nine-tenths of your income. Cross out the rest and consider them but a part of that great multitude of desires that must go unsatisfied and do not regret them.
Then, budget your necessary expenses. Do not touch the one-tenth that is fattening your purse. Let this be your great desire that is being fulfilled. Keep working within your budget; keep adjusting it to help you. Make it your first assistant in defending your fattening purse.
The purpose of a budget is to help you fatten your purse. It is to assist you to have your necessities and – insofar as attainable – your other desires. It is to enable you to realize your most cherished desires by defending them from your casual wishes. Like a bright light in a dark cave, your budget shows up the leaks from your purse and enables you to stop them and control your expenditures for definite and gratifying purposes.
Make your gold multiply
Observe your lean purse fattening. You have disciplined yourself to leave in it one-tenth of all you earn. You have controlled your expenditures to protect your growing treasure. Next, we will consider how to put your treasure to labor and increase. Gold in one’s purse is gratifying to own and satisfies a miserly soul, but it earns nothing. The gold we retain from our earnings is but the start. The earnings it will make will build our fortunes.
I tell you, my students, a man’s wealth is not in the coins he carries in his purse; it is in the income he builds, the golden straw that continually flows into his purse and keeps in bulging. That is what every man desires. That is what you, each one of you, desires: an income that continues to come whether you work or travel.
Put each coin into labor so that it can reproduce itself and help bring you income, a stream of wealth that will flow constantly into your purse.
Guard your treasures against loss
Misfortunes love a shining mark. Gold in a man’s purse must be guarded with firmness, lest it is lost. Thus it is wise that we first secure small amounts and learn to protect them before God entrusts us with larger amounts.
Every owner of gold is tempted by opportunities that offer the chance to make large sums by its investment in plausible projects. Often friends and relatives are eagerly entering such investments and urge him to follow.
The first sound principle of investment is security for your principal. Is it wise to be intrigued by larger earnings when your principal may be lost? I say not. The penalty of risk is a probable loss. Study each case carefully before parting with your treasure, so that it may be safely reclaimed. Do not be misled by your own romantic desires to make wealth rapidly.
Before you loan it to any man, assure yourself of his ability to repay and of his reputation for doing so, so that you do not unwittingly hand him your hard-earned treasure as a present.
I advise you from the wisdom of my experiences: do not be overly confident in your own wisdom when entrusting your treasures to the possible pitfalls of investments. It is far better to consult the wisdom of those experienced in handling money for profit. Such advice is free for the asking and may readily possess a value equal in gold to the sum you are considering investing. In fact, its value is such if it saves you from loss.
This then is the fourth remedy for a lean purse, and it is of great importance if it prevents your purse from being emptied once it has become well-filled. Guard your treasure against loss by investing only where your principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if desired, and where you will not fail to collect a fair rental. Consult with wise men. Secure the advice of men experienced in the profitable handling of gold. Let their wisdom protect you from unsafe investment.
Make your home a profitable investment
All too many of our men of Babylon raise their families in unseemly quarters. They pay high rentals to exacting landlords for small rooms where their wives are unhappy and their children have no place to play except in unclean alleys.
No man’s family can fully enjoy life unless they have a plot of ground where children can play in the clean earth and where the wife can raise good rich herbs to feed her family.
A man’s heart is gladdened when he reaps the crops of his own harvest. To own his house and to have it a place he is proud to care for puts confidence in a man’s heart and greater effort behind all his endeavors. Therefore, I recommend that every man owns the roof that shelters him and his.
Many blessings come to the man who owns his own house. His wife will be happier, and it will greatly reduce his cost of living, making more of his earnings available for pleasures and the gratification of his desires. This then is the Fifth Remedy for a lean purse. Own your own home.
Ensure a future income
The life of every man proceeds from his childhood to his old age. This is the path of life and no man can deviate from it unless God calls him prematurely to the world beyond. Therefore, I say that it behooves a man to make preparations for a suitable income in the days to come when he is no longer young, and to make preparations for his family to comfort and support them should he no longer with them. This lesson will instruct you on providing a full purse when the time has made you less able to earn.
A man who acquires a growing surplus should give thought to those future days. He should plan certain investments or provisions that will endure safely for many years, yet be available for that time he has so wisely anticipated.
Provide in advance, for the needs of your growing age and for the protection of your family.
Increase your ability to earn
Not long ago, a young man came to me asking for a loan. When I asked him why he needed it, he complained that his earnings where insufficient to pay his expenses. I explained to him that this being the case, he was a poor customer for the moneylender, as he possessed no surplus earning capacity to repay the loan.
What you need, a young man is to earn more coins. What have you done to increase your capacity to earn?
All that I can do, he replied. I have approached my master six times within two months to request that my pay be increased, but without success. No man can go more often than that.
We may smile at his simplicity, yet he did possess one of the vital requirements to increase his earnings. Within him was a strong desire to earn more, a proper and commendable desire.
The preceding accomplishment must be desire. Your desires must be strong and definite. General desires are but weak longings. For a man to wish to be rich is of little purpose; for a man to desire five pieces of gold is a tangible desire which he can press to fulfillment. After he has backed his desire for five pieces of gold with the strength of purpose to secure it, he can then find similar ways to obtain ten pieces and then twenty pieces and later a thousand pieces and behold, he has become wealthy. In learning to secure pieces his one definite, small desire, he has trained himself to secure a larger one. This is the process by which wealth is accumulated: first in small sums, then in larger ones as a man learns and becomes more capable.
Desires must be simple and definite. They defeat their own purpose if they are too many too confusing, or beyond one’s training to accomplish.
As a man perfects himself in his calling, his ability to earn increases. In the days when I was a humble scribe carving upon clay for a few daily coppers, I observed that other workers did more than I did, and were paid more. Therefore, I determined that I would not be exceeded by anyone. Nor did it take long for me to discover the reason for their greater success. More interest in my work, more concentration upon my task, more persistence in my effort, and behold, few men could carve more tablets in a day than I. With reasonable promptness my increased skill was rewarded, and it was unnecessary for me to go six times to my master to request recognition.
The more wisdom we know, the more we can earn. The man who seeks to learn more of his craft will be richly rewarded. If he is an artisan. he should seek to learn the methods and the tools of those most skillful in the same line. If he labors at the law or at healing, he should consult and exchange knowledge with others of his calling. If he is a merchant, he should continually seek better goods that can be purchased at lower prices.
The affairs of the world will always change and improve because keen-minded men seek greater skill, so that they may better serve those whose patronage they depend upon. Therefore, I urge all men to be in the front rank of progress and not to stand still, lest they are left behind.
Many things contribute to making a man’s life rich with gainful experiences.
The following are some of the things a man must do if he wants to respect himself:
He must pay his debt promptly, not purchasing what he is unable to pay for.
He must take care of his family so that they think and speak well of him.
He must make a will of record so that in case God calls him, proper and honorable division of his property can take place.
He must have compassion to those who are injured or smitten by misfortune and help them within reasonable limits. He must perform thoughtful deeds to those who are dear to him.
“The seventh and last remedy for a lean purse is to cultivate your powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to act so as to respect yourself. Thereby, you will acquire confidence in yourself to achieve your carefully considered desires.”
Good luck comes to the man who accepts the opportunity. Those eager to grasp opportunities for their betterment attract ‘good luck’. It seems to favor men of action best. Therefore, if a plan in your best interest, promptly accept it. If it is against your best interest, with equal promptness, reject it.
Action will lead you forward to the successes you desire.
The Tale of the Five Laws of Gold
“A BAG heavy with gold or clay tablet carved with words of wisdom: if you had your choice, which would you chose?”
“The gold, the gold,” chorused the twenty-seven.
“Hear the wild dogs out there in the night. They howl and wail because they are lean with hunger. Yet feed them, and what do they do? Fight and strut. Then fight and strut some more, giving no thought to tomorrow that will surely come.”
“So it is with the sons of men. Give them a choice of gold and wisdom – what do they do? Ignore the wisdom and waste the gold. The next day they wail because they have no more gold.”
“Gold is reserved for those who know its laws and abide by them.”
The Five Laws of Gold
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 fortune and that of his family.
Gold labors diligently and contentedly for the wiser owner who finds profitable employment for it, multiplying as the flocks of the field.
Gold clings to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.
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.
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.
“Without wisdom, gold is quickly lost by those who have it, but with wisdom, gold can be secured by those who don’t have it.”
“Our wise acts accompany us through life to please us and to help us. Just as surely, our unwise acts follow us to plague and torment us. Alas, they cannot be forgotten. In the front rank of the torments that follow us are the memories of the things we should have done, of the opportunities which came to us and which we did not take.”
“If you wish to help your friend, do so in a way that will not bring your friend’s burdens upon yourself.”
“From each person to whom I lend, I exact a token for my token chest, to remain there until the loan is repaid.”
“The safest loans, my token box tells me, are to those whose possessions are of more value than the loan they desire. Some of the tokens given to me are jewels of more value than the loan. Others are promises that if the loan is not repaid as agreed they will deliver to me certain property in settlement.”
In another class are those who have the capacity to earn. Such loans are based on human effort.
Others are those who have neither property nor assured earning capacity unless they are guaranteed by good friends of the borrower who know him as honorable.
Humans in the throws of great emotions are not safe risks for the gold lender.
If they borrow for the purposes that bring money back to them, I find it so. But if they borrow because of their indiscretions, I warn you to be cautious if you ever want to have your gold back in hand again.
“Youth is ambitious. Youth take shortcuts to wealth and desirable things. To secure wealth quickly, youth often borrows unwisely. Youth, never having had the experience, cannot realize that hopeless debt if like a deep pit into which one may descend quickly and where one may struggle so vainly for many days.”
It is well to assist those that are in trouble, it is well to help those who fate has laid a heavy hand. It is well to help those who are starting so that they can progress and become valuable citizens. But help must be given wisely, lest, like the farmer’s ass, in our desire to help we take upon ourselves the burden that belongs to another.
Better a little caution than a great regret.
The hungrier one becomes the clearer one’s mind works and the more sensitive one becomes to the odors of food.
No man can respect himself who does not repay honest debts.
The soul of a free man looks at life as a series of problems to be solved and solves them, while the soul of slave whines, ‘What can I do since I am a slave?’
Where there is determination, the way can be found.
