This is an overview of the principles found in the classic book on financial education, Richest Man in Babylon by George C. Clauson.

1. Start your purse to fattening. For every ten coins you place within your purse, take out for use only nine. Thy purse will start to fatten at once and its increasing weight will feel good in your hand and bring satisfaction to your soul.

2. Control your expenditures. That what each of us calls our “necessary expenses” will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary. Therefore, engrave upon the clay each thing for which you desire to spend. Select those that are necessary and others that are possible through the expenditure of nine-tenths of your income.

3. Make your gold multiply. To put each coin to laboring that it may reproduce its kind even as the flocks of the field and help bring to thee income, a stream of wealth that shall flow constantly into your purse.

4. Guard your treasures from loss. Guard your treasure from loss by investing only where your principal is safe, where it may be reclaimed if desirable, and where you will not fail to collect a fair rental. Consult with wise men. Secure the advice of those experienced in the profitable handling of gold. Let their wisdom protect your treasure from unsafe investment.

5. Make of your dwelling a profitable investment. Own your own home.

6. Insure a future income. Provide in advance for the needs of thy growing age and the protection of thy family.

7. Increase the ability to earn. To cultivate your own powers, to study and become wiser, to become more skillful, to so act is to respect yourself.