Page 25 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com

8 TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

‘The second vice is lying, the first is running in debt,’ says Franklin,
implying that while honest people can run into debt, the act of being in
debt may make them lie about it.

DEFINING IDEA…
Oh what a wicked web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
~ SIR WALTER SCOTT

Which comes first? Debt or denial? According to Franklin it is failing to
keep your finances on the straight and narrow that leads to falsehood and
from Which is true, but not necessarily in the way there to the slippery
slope. Which is true, but not necessarily in the way you’re thinking. It’s not
that everyone in debt lies to others, but that the vast majority of those in
debt lie to themselves. Don’t believe it? Try a simple question: how much
do you owe?

A debt audit is rarely as clear cut as you think because everyone in debt
rationalises their situation by mentally rebranding debt as something else.
It’s a remarkably efficient technique—just consider how much less attractive
a credit card would sound if it was called, more accurately, a debt card.

So let’s start with credit cards. Do you really know how much you owe,
exactly, on your cards this month? Are you completely sure you know how
many cards you have that debt spread over? Nor is it enough to be able to
glibly reel off the precise figure—in order to really know how much debt
you have, you also have to know the current interest rate your card is
charging you because that will affect how much you owe. A fair few of us
might be able to say with some certainty how much they owe, but few of
us could give the rate exactly, not least since it has undoubtedly changed
since you took out the card.

Now what about the mortgage? I know, it seems churlish to consider the
mortgage as a debt since almost everyone has got one and it’s undoubtedly