RULE 10

Understand that money begets money

There is no greater truth than this – money makes money. It likes clustering together. It breeds quietly and quickly like rabbits. It prefers to hang out in big groups. Money makes money. The rich get richer; the poor get poorer. That’s life. Yes, it is sad. But it does seem to be a fact. Now we can work hard ourselves and do something about it or we can sit around moaning and become part of the problem. The choice, as always, is entirely yours.

If you do want to do something about it, then it seems to make sense to me to make a tidy sum and use your money wisely to help the less fortunate than you. Or do whatever with it you so choose.

Once you have some money you’ll be astonished at how quickly it can grow. I recommend you understand and learn the concept of compound interest as quickly as possible. And no, I am not going to tell you anything about it except it’s vitally important that you know about it and make it a cornerstone in your building of wealth. The reason I’m not going to tell you anything about it is, firstly, this isn’t that sort of a book and, secondly, I’m not going to do all the work for you.^* That would be too easy and you’d learn nothing. My observation is that wealthy people get the idea of compound interest and the rest of us don’t.

If you spend all you get, then this Rule will never work for you; it’ll never get your money working for you. You have to set aside money for breeding purposes. If you ran a rabbit farm and killed and ate all your rabbits, you wouldn’t have any left to keep going. Forget the rabbit farm – you’re going to start a money farm. Your money will breed. You can then reinvest some and spend some – but you can’t spend it all or you’ll have no more rabbits. Look, this stuff isn’t rocket science but it is amazing how many people simply don’t get it. But you do now. You have been given the best tip I can give you.

• Put some money aside for breeding purposes.
• Cream a little off for spending.
• Reinvest the bulk to build up a good and healthy stock.
• Keep it to yourself.