Poor Richard's Almanack

Benjamin Franklin

2 ideas

1. Small leaks sink great ships

   Ruin rarely comes from one large expense; it comes from many small, habitual outflows that each seem too minor to matter. Because trivial costs repeat unnoticed while large ones get scrutinized, the discipline that protects wealth is attending to the small recurring spend, not the occasional big purchase.

2. Time is money: idleness as spending

   Every hour spent idle should be counted as money given up, because time is the raw material that labor turns into income. Seeing time as a currency makes leisure, sloth and delay visible as real costs, and it treats early rising and steady industry as ways to build wealth rather than simply as virtues.

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