I have been hitting the books like a mad man the last few days, carving up insights to share on SN like a chef dicing veggies. But none of those works are ready to go yet, so I thought today I'd share some thoughts from my favorite (but little known) personal finance book…
The Way to Wealth
In which the old sage of Philadelphia repeatedly encourages hodling, wise expenditure, avoidance of debt, and no lending.
1. “We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly.”
In response to complaints about heavy taxes (a respectable complaint, mind you), old Ben writes out a proverb with especial relevance to 2024's Bitcoiner. Namely:
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Aimless activity, like doomscrolling or browsing Twitter drama, is costing you sats.
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Failing to “stay humble and stack sats” will cost you sats.
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Doing silly things with your Bitcoin, especially ultra-silly things like yield chasing, will also cost you sats!
2. “If you were a servant, would you not be ashamed that a good master should catch you idle? Are you, then, your own master?”
I expect any would-be sovereign individual will feel this one sting to the core. If you're not mastering your impulse to idleness, are you really sovereign?
3. “If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as of getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her outgoes are greater than her incomes.”
It's one of life's great traps to amplify your expenses as you grow wealthier.
“I deserve this!” we say 🤡
And maybe you do— but that's part of the trap. You would rather not end up like the Habsburgs that Franklin references: spectacular wealth balanced by spectacular indebtedness.
4. “You may think, perhaps, that a little tea, or a little punch now and then, diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember... ‘A small leak will sink a great ship.”
This one is insidious. Mastering Bitcoin includes an example where the cost of coffee equals 0.5 BTC. Today that would be around 7500 sats—cheaper? Indeed so, but your sats are valuable, and a coffee a day adds up fast. After 10 days that's 75,000 sats, and the thing about satoshis is…. they ain't getting any less valuable.
By all means, buy some coffee. We are not misers. But never overdo it! You never know what the future might do to your 7,000 sats….
5. “Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse; Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.”
It's very easy to get carried away when the value of your sats increases. Fiat bros “take profit” and sell, but a Bitcoiner's version of “taking profit” is just buying something he ordinarily might not.
At the same time, we shouldn't let the fear of being “Bitcoin pizza guy” prevent us from using Bitcoin for valuable exchanges. When you're on a Bitcoin standard, you're going to spend—that's what it's for. But bare minimum spend somewhere you get some sats back for the expense.
6. “But ah! Think what you do when you run in debt; you give to another power over your liberty… Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.”
It's interesting to me that, once upon a time, usury was universally seen as a negative… and that's putting it mildly. Yet since 1694 (Bank of England establishment), we've said, “I really don't see what could possibly be so bad about usury.” 🤷
I suppose we're now getting a front-row lesson on why ancient civs hated usury. There's an old Chinese proverb that goes: “Wholesale robbers start a bank.”
7. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”
This one is for the people in your life asking what you think could be “the next Bitcoin.” After one or two admonitions, you're better off encouraging them to stay the hell away. Their money is liable to end up in the coffers of some rugpulling scoffer extolling the virtues of his crypto lending products.
8. “Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure… Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never.”
This pithy saying conceals one of the great secrets of life. Many avoid diligence because they rather relax—we've all been there. But you'll soon find that you can never truly relax when the rest is unearned, as Ecclesiastes says: "For the sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep."