About this title: This title serves up sound practical advice on thrift, financial planning, and investment philosophy in a unique and refreshing way. Clason delivers classic insights into wealth accumulation through a series of "parables" set in ancient Babylon, the ancient world's wealthiest city. When Clason introduced these parables in a famous series of pamphlets first published in 1926, banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions began to distribute them to their customers. His advice soon provided guidance to millions of readers. Although first written over half a century ago, these ...
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Description: Acceptable. Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"This is a great book and I would recommend this book to whomever is having trouble with either saving money or in debt with irs or a bank, or he who does not know what to do with thee money. It is also best for kids about to go on their own with no financial knowledge to start their life early with the knowledge of becoming a man of wealth. This book can help anyone with any trouble of overcoming grinds or foreclosure, losing a car, taking out second mortgages, types of things like that. My favorite part of the book would haft to be story about the man teaching other people about how opportunities can pass you buy. The man teaching this was the man that was taught buy Arkad's son. Arkad's son become one of the richest men not using his father's money to get their either. He taught the man teaching about opportunities the five rules of money witch his dad gave him before he sent him off to become wealthy. My favorite character is Arkad because he is the start of all the tales of the stories in the book and he is the richest man in Babylon. Starting just being a clay writer being one of the unhealthiest man in Babylon and taking the money lender as his trainer and becoming the richest man in Babylon. I don't really have a least favorite character in this book since this is not a story type of book with a plot and good vs. bad. It's more of a book with different tales in it to support the author's point of how to use your money in positive ways. If I would haft to chose it would be the nomads in the barrens that raid people's caravans. At least that's what they are in the story in real life they would be people that try to scam you out of your money.
This book is meant for people to learn how to make money and save money and become wealthy and master the ways of making money no matter what job you have or how much you make arkad was a clay carver and made about 10 pieces of copper a day. Well he became the richest man in Babylon just following the rules of money. The fact that it is one of the best books I have had the chance to read and one of the best books ever. Only books like the bible and, dontes inferno and the divine comedy, or the stand which is great, can be compared this is a great book and ill keep it till I die and pass it onto my son. It is a must read you can ask anyone that has had the chance to read it how great it is. It is not a book that can really change your mood like a sad book would but change your life forever to become wealthy and have anything you would want to have if you just put your mind to it. One thing that I really liked about it was that it was not a normal book with one big story and one big plot it was more like tales that you never really got to the end of the tale then you got what that story was about."
"This book was absolutely fantastic! It really opened my eyes to finances and has changed the way I view them. One of the biggest things this book teaches is that no matter what size your income is, 10% of it is yours to keep. Another is that debt is an enemy to conquer, not a necessary evil. One of the families in the story did this, and had to pay rent on top of it. We have long realized that renting and paying interest on a mortgage is about the same. Michael and I came up with a spending plan that allots 20% of our income to actually paying off our debt, and we will be completely debt free in 9 years, and in that time we will also have allotted 10% to savings. 10% of our income goes to tithing as well, so this gives us 60% of our income to live off of. But we took that figure and created a plan based on that amount. We're not going to starve on that figure. This plan gives us less money for other things that we're used to buying, and starting out we realize that we're going to have to sacrifice to make this work, but we figure that now while our family is young is the best time to establish these habits. To be completely debt free with our home before we even have teenagers will be a powerful thing. We just need to focus on this master plan. This book was highly motivating for me, and I recommend it to anyone who ever uses money."
"Why I Read this Book: This book touches on the fundamentals of personal finance and reminds us of the simplicity and discipline that have proven successful for thousands of years.
Topics Covered:
* Personal Finance * Money Management * Conservative Value Investment
Review:
Generally I like to read and review the most recent books, but from time to time I am lured into a true classic. My guess is that many of us on our path to success have already stumbled upon this one and that's just why I've reviewed it. If you've read it in the past, it's worth another glance. Its lessons are more relevant than ever as many of those around us face difficult economic times. Perhaps our country wouldn't be where it is today if we had all heeded the lessons of fundamental personal finance and investment that George Clason laid out for us almost 100 years ago.
Clason takes a creative, yet simple story-telling approach to teach the reader the basics and the foundation of how to conservatively build wealth over time and become financially successful. The story takes place in Babylon some 6,000 years ago where the significance of financial wealth, gold in this case, was as important as ever. As much as I hate to admit it, we live in a society that only seems to put more and more importance on money. I hope and trust that you readers are driven and motivated by your own definitions of success, but our culture as a whole still has a long way to go.
In Babylon there is a man who is wealthier than all and there is another poor man deeply interested in how he has achieved such status so he begins to make daily visits to his house on the hill, bringing others along, to learn the lessons that created such wealth. The man is open to share his keys to success and the others intently listens as he tells stories and experiences in his life that get across the most fundamental techniques of personal money management, savings and investment.
At times I found myself so deep into the stories being told that I had to step back to realize the significance of the seemingly simple lessons. To be honest, most of us have surely heard these in one form or another but most likely not in the form of such an engaging playbook.
Some of the core lessons include:
* Part of what you earn is yours to keep-Save 10% * Control thy expenses * Don't borrow unwisely or unnecessarily * Make gold multiply-invest wisely and prudently * Guard against loss-invest with a margin of safety * Understand where you invest
At first glace it's easy to discredit these as simple common sense. But the thing we should all be aware of at this point is that common sense is not common practice. As I reread through some of these key points, I realized that they have so much in common with many of the wealthy men of our time. Take Charlie Munger (who's recommendation first turned me onto this book), Benjamin Graham or Warren Buffett. These guys have followed these points closer than you'd think possible and they are known to be the best investors of all time, not to mention quite wealthy. I have been reading Warren Buffett's biography, Snowball (which you'll see a review on shortly) and it has reaffirmed how incredibly fanatic Warren has been from day one to do everything mentioned above. He has been saving money since he could walk and to this day he controls expenses more stringently than even the great majority of the middle class, yet he is worth some $60 billion. And we should all know that he's followed the last three. That's what keeps him from investing in so many of the things that lead to ruin. And his mentor, Ben Graham, made famous the idea of guarding against loss in his concept of a margin of safety. He wouldn't touch an investment unless it possessed something that insured against the downside-which often meant investing in a company with a strong balance sheet and a ton of cash.
My point in mentioning these guys is that they are famous for their wealth creation and while George Clason and the richest man in Babylon (if he really did exist), are not quite as well known, their lessons teach us the things that will all but guarantee the strict follower to become far wealthier than necessary. Proof is riddled throughout history. But yet what continues to blow my mind is that despite this historical evidence, most everyone around us is still over-spending and in up to their ears in debt. Even those who make half a million or a million a year still manage to let their expenses run wild and don't possess the discipline to save. Granted everyone else around them is in the same rat race-Make money so you can spend more money so you need to make more money; all so you can look good to others. The truth is that the answer is simpler than any of us would like to imagine but it takes more discipline than most anyone wants to put forth.
As these lessons become more and more relevant, the discipline required to really execute on them only gets larger. Our culture seems to be convinced that spending and material accumulation is the way to success. It's true that it may be the way to outward and superficial success, but that won't take you much farther than a couple compliments at your first few cocktail parties. Sooner rather than later it will catch up to you, as it has done to our country as a whole. And at that point it will become necessary to dust off your 'internal yardstick' and start measuring yourself, your actions and your success by what you know to be proven and true. This goes for your financial success as well as success in every other part of your life. Measuring yourself against the superficial standards of others and society will only lead to disappointment and further you from your own fulfillment.
Take this read not only as a chance to relearn the simplicity and discipline that goes into financial success but also as a reminder that the road to success of all sorts is often not lined with a bunch of spectators following the crowd. If you have your own conviction and discipline of what creates results, that crowd will be anything but necessary as your travel down your own road to achievement. The wealth-be it gold, happiness or anything in between, will certainly follow.
"Well, it's a short 144 pages of general advice about finances. Written in antiquated Elizabethan English to give it a weightier feel I guess. This is not the best book on personal finance, but the fictional backstory-if a bit contrived-does make it more interesting and memorable. The main thing this book is good for is to help people see beyond their current situation and believe they can become financially independent. The primary piece of advice Clason gives is to "pay yourself first." If you're only going to read one personal finance book, I'd suggest Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson instead."
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