The Richest Man in Babylon (2)

Seeing as it’s such a short book, it didn’t take me long to finish The Richest Man in Babylon. The very last chapter was a short history of the Babylonian kingdom. Nothing you couldn’t look up on Wikipedia in five seconds, but extremely interesting nonetheless.

I also liked the debt reduction plan Clason introduced in later chapter: devote 10% of your earnings to savings, 20% to paying back your debts and 70% to profit-making investments. Of course the nature of your debt determines whether this is feasible or not, e.g. if your house is on the verge of foreclosure I’m not sure the bank would go along with this plan. But for someone with a reasonable amount of debt, it’s a feasible method that should pay off in the long-term.

The Richest Man in Babylon (1) book review

I’ve made it my goal recently to read a few self-improvement books every month. Today I picked up an old copy of The Richest Man in Babylon lying around the house and dug in. It’s very short, less than 150 pages, and packed with common sense advice. On one hand this is all stuff any finance-savvy person would know, seeing as the ideas in it appear in just about every wealth-making book to date. On the other hand, this book was published in 1926, so it’s likely they all copied The Richest Man in Babylon.

I’m only about halfway in so far, so this is just the first part of the review. The writing style is interesting, if archaic, and all the ideas are simply and lucidly presented. The major ones: save 10% of your income, invest only in sound opportunities, only take financial (and other) advice from people in the know, own your own home (easier said than done) and improve yourself so you can earn more. All sound, solid advice. So far, so good.