Thomas Oppong on the golden rule of personal finance

“There are 56,956 personal finance books on Amazon.com. In aggregate, they contain more than 3 billion words. This seems absurd because 99% of personal finance can be summarized in nine words: Work a lot, spend a little, invest the difference. Master that, and the other 2.999 billion words are filler.”

Morgan Housel,
author of The Psychology of Money:
Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, And Happiness. 

Housel is quoted (see above) by Thomas Oppong in an article on Medium titled 99% of Personal Finance Can be Summarized in Nine Words (Note: you may be greeted by the Medium paywall).

Simple advice. Very simple. And like a lot of simple, common sense advice, quite hard to follow.

Other quotes from this article

Spending less than we earn is one of the most fundamental principles of all personal finances, and yet so many of us have such a hard time doing it!

The Japanese believe that tidiness in your finances is as important as tidiness in your home. “Most children in Japan get their first training in personal finance at a young age from their parents. They are taught that the more money they save, the higher the quality of personal items they can buy in the future,” writes Melo at Moni Ninja.

To build long-term wealth, invest just a small percentage of your income into a broad-based fund every month. Once a month, I buy more shares of selected Vanguard Index Funds. The cost is low, and the risk is also relatively low.