A User's view of Hledger

Learning about hledger

The richest hledger user in Babylon (part 3)

One of the lists in the book The Richest Man in Babylon is “The Five Laws of Gold.” The third law states: “Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.” If you wanted to follow this advice, how could hledger help?

In this case, hledger would provide a starting point. Specifically, where are you currently investing your money? The hledger accounts command, as below, would list all your accounts:

hledger accounts

If all your investment accounts were under the “assets” category, you could eliminate many non-investment accounts by using the command:

hledger accounts assets

That was the easy part! You have a list that includes all your investment accounts. Now it is time to ask for each of the investment accounts: “Is this account managed according to people wise in investing?”

I can’t answer that question for you, but I encourage you to think about it!