The art of money getting book summary

The Art of Money Getting: Book Summary

Golden rules for making money

The Art of money getting is a short book that encourages anyone who is willing to make money to have multiple doors open for himself. He outlines a way of living rather than some get-rich-quick-scheme. Everyone can build wealth through proper financial knowledge: Saving, investing in some form, living a life with integrity, letting money work for you, and learning its true value.


Who Should Read This Book

Anyone who is willing to build wealth and is not looking for some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, this book is for you. It outlines a way of life to live a wealthy lifestyle.

Book Summary: The Art of Money Getting

There are still many doors open for anyone who is willing to aspire to wealth
There are still many fields that are least crowded where one can engage in respectable occupations and earn a good living. And with proper economic knowledge, he can lead his path to wealth.

There’s one simple rule to building wealth: Spend less than what you make, save and make your money work for you. That’s how you should work.

Many people think that they understand the economy when they don’t. People tend to spend more than what they can afford. They try to be economical in saving a few cents but when it comes to bigger expenses, they tend to not give a second thought.

They choose to spend 20 dollars and 3 cents when their salary is only 20 dollars. No one will ever succeed by practicing this kind of economy. The best economy is to have a certain surplus at the end of every month.

If you don’t have a certain kind of surplus at the end of every month or year, then you should certainly reconsider your lifestyle and change it.

However, it requires self-training to understand and accomplish this type of economy. But once you do, you will find more satisfaction in rational saving than rational spending. You’ll be more satisfied with a social chat rather than a gathering of thousands of dollars.

The real comforts of life cost but a small portion of what most of us can earn. Most people spend way much on luxuries than they can afford to lead to their downfall.

“It is the eyes of others and not our own eyes which ruin us. If all the world were blind except me I should not care for fine clothes or furniture.”

You cannot accumulate a fortune by taking a path that leads to poverty.


Don’t mistake your vocation

Often, we are not the ones who decide what we should do. Somebody else does it. Maybe it’s our parents, friends or relatives. But the truth is: We all have diversities in our brains. Everyone is naturally inclined to something different. Some are born to be great mathematicians while some hate the word mathematics.

If you are not choosing the vocation you are naturally not inclined to, chances are you will have a hard time succeeding at what you do. Therefore, the first choice, right vocation is an important rule of money getting.


Select right location

Once you have selected your vocation, it’s time to select the right location. Unless you are careful about your proper location, you can’t get good results.

Imagine you are a world-class cook and want to open a hotel. You know how to manage people and hotels. You can satisfy five hundred people every day. Now despite all these characteristics, you have you will not succeed if you open your hotel in a village side where there is no road communication and public travel. Your location would ruin it.

Similarly, you’ll also not succeed if you commence your business where there are already enough businesses to meet the demand of the consumer/ customer or where there is no demand from your customer.


Avoid debt

Debt is the fastest way to lead to poverty. Debt can rob a man of self-respect and can almost make him despise himself.

Getting in debt for what you eat and what you wear is to be avoided. This is a foolish habit that many people have. Interest pilling up against you will pull you down in the worst kind of slavery.

When you are in debt, you grow poorer and poorer even when you are sleeping because the interest is piling up against you. At the same time, the one who lends you money is accumulating more of it even when he is sleeping.

So, you can either ask for money to work for you or against you. And as far as you are concerned to make money, don’t let it work against you.


Persevere

People with no perseverance and self-reliance will rarely succeed. These types of people will always be looking for advice and will be governed by one wind and blown by another. They can’t rely on themselves.

There are people who have committed suicide because they thought they couldn’t overcome their misfortune and there are people who even after going through serious difficulties, simply persevere and overcome difficulties and made a way to a wealthier life.


Whatever you do, Do it With All Your Might

“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”

Ambition, energy, industry, and perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business. If something is worth giving your effort, give it your full. Don’t leave a stone unturned. Do all for yourselves that you can. Don’t stop doing it until you finish your part of the work.

A lot of people talk about luck and how lucky someone is. But luck is also created by oneself. There never was a man who could go out in the morning and find a bag full of gold in the street today and tomorrow and so on, day after day.

“Fortune always favors the brave, and never helps a man who does not help himself.”

Depend on your own personal exertions

No one can succeed in life or business unless he understands it by personal application and experience. He who wants his business to succeed has to learn the many details of his business personally. He will make mistakes every day and have to learn something every day.

Anyone willing to insure success should have a perfect knowledge of his business.


Use the best tools

Men in engaging employees should be careful to get the best. There is no tool you should be as particular as living tools(humans). If you get a good one, it is better to keep him than change him.

He will learn something every day and he will be worth much more this year than he was last year. As long as his habits are good and faithful, you should keep him.
But in case he demands a much increase in salary thinking you can’t work without him, let him go.

An important element of an employee is his brain. As long as he has a sharp brain and experience, it is better to keep him, at a reasonable advance in salary from time to time.


Don’t get above your business

You are mistaken if you believe you can succeed with borrowed money.
Money is good for nothing unless you know the value of it by experience.
The man who has never earned a single penny knows nothing of the real value of money. Even if he gets some, he will lose it soon.

Therefore, don’t try to build a business with borrowed money until you know the value of money.


Learn Something Useful

In order to change fortune, everyone should learn something useful to fall back upon. This will prevent misery, in case of an unexpected turn of fortune. Anything you learn can be used in a part of your life.

Learning never goes in vain. Everything you learn will compound your success.


Let hope pre-dominate, but be not too visionary

The problem with many people is that they drift from one profession to another and another. This is what keeps them poor. Every project seems like a certain success to them. And in such hope, they try it only to find out, it’s not as easy as they thought.

So, they keep changing their professions and never truly succeed at anything.


Do Not Scatter Your Powers

Focus. Focus on one thing at a time. Don’t put your focus on multiple things. Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed. Don’t abandon it until your experience tells you to do so.

“Many fortunes have slipped from the hand of a man because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time.”


Be Systematic

You should be systematic when conducting a business. When you introduce the system in your business, you’ll have more leisure time for recreation and rejuvenation.

A person who does business by rule, having a time and place for everything, doing his work promptly, will accomplish twice as much and with half the trouble as him who does it carelessly and slipshod.

Also, be careful to not make the system entirely too far.


Read the newspaper

This advice is not as true as it was when the book,’ The Art of Money Getting’ was published because newspapers and media are not as good as they used to be.

The main point the author is trying to make here is that you should keep yourself updated with whatever is happening in the world(at least in your sector of business)

Always keep yourself thoroughly posted with the transactions of the world. Another point is to remember to take news from credible sources only.


Beware of outside operations

There are people who went down the path of poverty although they once were rich. This happens frequently when a man is engaged in some sort of ‘outside operation’. If he forgets his economic habits and mistakenly believes that he understands everything, he will lose everything that he possesses.

However successful a man may be he shouldn’t engage himself in ill businesses and businesses that he doesn’t understand.

Although you can invest some part of your money in anything that promises to give success, if you have plenty of money, it should only be done in a moderate amount.


Don’t indorse without security

No man should ever indorse a note or become security for any man, be it his father or brother unless he can afford to lose or care nothing about without taking good security.

It is a dangerous thing to get yourself or people the hold of money too easily because it tempts them to hazardous speculations if nothing more.

Therefore, the first dollar should always be made at some great sacrifice, in order to appreciate the value of those dollars.


Advertise your business

The whole philosophy of life is first to sow, then reap. That is the way how it works. The farmer first plants his potatoes, sows the grain, and then comes the time to reap. He never reaps and sows.

Advertising is like sowing. If you never sow, you’ll never reap. If you have anything that is valuable, a genuine product that will give the customer satisfaction, you should let them know the fact. That’s where advertising should be done.

There is no way a man can reap more advantageously than by sowing to the public. While advertising, he should advertise until the public knows who and what he is, and what his business is, or else the money invested in advertising is lost.


Don’t read the other side

Success in business is all due to customers. Your first job is to attract your customers, retain them and use them afterward to grow your business.


Be polite and kind to your customers

Men who drive sharp bargains with their customers, acting as if they never expected to see them again, will not be mistaken. They will never see them again as customers. People don’t like to pay and get kicked also.

Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in the business. And honesty is still the best policy.


Be charitable

Once you have enough for living, you should donate a fraction of what you have. Not only because it’s your duty, but also because it gives you immense pleasure and satisfaction.

Solomon said, “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than meet, but it tendeth to poverty.”

The best kind of charity is to help those people who are willing to help themselves. And of course, the only true charity is that which is from the heart.


Don’t blab

People love to talk more than they listen. They share everything with others or somebody, at least. They share their plans, ideas, and whatnot, and often to the wrong people. Most of the time nothing is gained by sharing your ideas and plans with others, but a lot is lost.

Therefore, Say nothing about your profits, your hopes, your expectations, and your intentions. Be careful of who you are telling and whom you are telling.


Persevere your integrity

A man is known for his integrity. Have a certain set of principles to live by. Be honest. No man can be dishonest without being soon found out. And when his lack of principle is discovered, nearly every door to his success is closed.

Franklin’s “Honesty is the best policy” never fails to be true. Getting rich is always not equivalent to being successful. The hardest thing in life is to make money dishonestly. Because it will not give you the inner satisfaction that being an average honest man has.

Therefore, always work with integrity. Be honest, kind, and compassionate.


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