Margen
«The Richest Man in Babylon», by George S. Clason, wraps in ancient parables a rule that remains intact: out of every ten coins you earn, keep one. Pay yourself first and learn to live on the remaining nine.
With a €1,500 paycheck, that tenth is €150 a month: €1,800 a year that exist only because you decided they would exist before you started spending.
Clason adds two warnings that almost everyone forgets. First: put that money to work, because idle savings are an army without orders. Second: don't entrust it to someone who doesn't know the trade; the bricklayer knows bricks, not jewels. A century after it was written, we still lose money by skipping exactly those two pieces of advice.