The Richest Man in Babylon

First published in 1926 as a series of informational pamphlets distributed by banks and insurance companies, **George S. Clason's "The Richest Man in Babylon"** remains one of the most beloved and accessible personal finance classics ever written. Set 4,000 years ago in ancient **Babylon**—the wealthiest city of the ancient world, not because it possessed abundant natural resources, but because its citizens mastered the laws of money—the book uses engaging parables about chariot builders, scribes, and merchants to teach financial laws that have not changed in four millennia.

The central story begins with **Bansir**, a skilled chariot builder, and **Kobbi**, a musician, who realize that despite working from dawn to dusk for years, their purses remain completely empty. They seek out their childhood friend **Arkad**, who started with no inheritance or special privilege just like them, yet rose from a humble clay-tablet scribe to become **"The Richest Man in Babylon."** Asked by the King of Babylon to teach his secrets to a council of a hundred citizens so that wealth might spread throughout the empire, Arkad delivers the famous **Seven Cures for a Lean Purse**:

1. **Cure 1: Start Thy Purse to Fattening (Pay Yourself First):** For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse, take out for use but nine. *"A part of all I earn is mine to keep."* Before paying the landlord, the baker, or the garment merchant, set aside **at least 10 percent** of everything you earn. 2. **Cure 2: Control Thy Expenditures:** What each of us calls our "necessary expenses" will always grow to equal our income unless we protest to the contrary. Confuse not your necessary living needs with your infinite desires. Budget the remaining 90% so you live comfortably without touching your 10% seed capital. 3. **Cure 3: Make Thy Gold Multiply:** Coins sitting idle in a pouch bring only satisfaction to the miser's eye; they earn nothing. Put every saved coin to work as a "golden slave" in productive enterprises so that its children, and its children's children, labor to build a stream of income that flows whether you are working or traveling. 4. **Cure 4: Guard Thy Treasures from Loss:** The first sound principle of investment is **security of thy principal**. Arkad recounts losing his entire first year's savings because he entrusted his gold to a brickmaker named Azmur to buy rare jewels from the Phoenicians—only to be sold worthless colored glass! Consult only those experienced in the specific craft: don't take jewel advice from a brickmaker, and don't chase get-rich-quick schemes promising impossible returns. 5. **Cure 5: Make of Thy Dwelling a Profitable Investment:** Owning your own roof in a prudent manner brings peace of mind to your family and reduces long-term living costs. 6. **Cure 6: Insure a Future Income:** Provide in advance for the needs of your growing age and the protection of your family should you no longer be with them. 7. **Cure 7: Increase Thy Ability to Earn:** Cultivate your own powers, study your craft, become wiser and more skillful, and pay your debts promptly (as taught in the later parable of Dabasir the camel trader, who used the **70-20-10 Plan**: living on 70%, paying creditors 20%, and saving 10% to climb out of slavery and crushing debt).