How can you implement the lessons from The Richest Man in Babylon in hledger? Last week in this blog I said that there were few. Of course, few is more than zero, and this week I would like to explore one of these.
The lesson I have in mind is one of the very first one in the book. It’s a simple — yet very powerful — lesson. We should save and invest at least 10% of our total income.
An hledger command that can help with the above is incomestatement. You can see an example of this command with some sample data at https://hledger.org/incomestatement.html.
One key point of the output of this command would be the “net” figure. If it’s a negative number, you have spent more than you earned. Uh-oh.
On the other hand, if it’s a positive number equal to 10% or more of your “revenues” total, you are potentially in alignment with the book. One reason that I say “potentially” is that the saved amount needs to be invested in something that will itself generate income, according to the book.
Note, too, that the figures generated by the incomestatement command depend on your accurately tracking your income and expenses. If you don’t have accurate numbers for your income and expenses, incomestatement is not going to produce an accurate result. However, if your data is good, incomestatement will give you the information that you are looking for.
I anticipate looking at The Richest Man in Babylon and corresponding hledger commands in a few more postings. Stay tuned!