What the Media Never Told You About the “Millionaire Janitor”

I updated a classic financial guide to reflect today’s tough truths

I swear by the 1930 financial guide The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason. I practice its principles religiously. But the book was written before the health insurance crisis, predatory credit, and the lockdown. My forthcoming The Richest Man In Babylon Action Plan is a no-bullshit companion to the original. Here is an excerpt.

I hardly need to tell you about the dangers of revolving debt on credit cards, which generally carry yearly interest rates of more than twenty percent. (Cash advances are even higher — avoid them like exposed electrical wires other than in an emergency.) The compound effects can be staggering. Billionaire Mark Cuban was once asked for his core financial advice for everyday people. Don’t use credit cards, he said.

For a billionaire such advice seems plain — and I honor it. But I also know the real-world pressures that lead to debt, including high-interest credit-card debt. The fact is: at some point in life nearly all of us are going to use credit cards to purchase things we need, either medical, educational, or work-related. In such cases, you can attempt to take out a low-interest loan to consolidate and payoff debt. Some banks even offer such…