Ask what would make you fail, then avoid exactly that.
Invert.
Five habits that keep people poor. Rank them by what they cost over ten years. Worst first.
Turn each rule upside down and you get the quickest road to broke. Avoid those first.
← Red LinesRed Line 47 of 48 The idea The scene Try it Where it bends This game’s numbersHow strong the proof isDThin proof Where it comes from
Instead of asking how to succeed, ask how you would surely fail: borrowing too much, paying high fees, selling in panics. Then don’t do those things.
Three roads to the goal: the fast one borrows big and has a cliff; the exciting one chases tips through a swamp of fees and guesses; the plain one is steady, cheap and spread. Only the plain one has no known way to fail.
Write the three surest ways you could wreck your own money plan. That list is your plan’s guard rail.
Avoiding failure is not a goal by itself. Pair it with what you want.
Worked out on this page
Mostly one investor’s rule of thinking. One old lab study backs part of it: picturing an outcome as certain helps people find its causes.
- Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger Peter D. Kaufman (ed.), Donning Company Publishers, 2005
- Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events Deborah J. Mitchell, J. Edward Russo & Nancy Pennington, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 2(1), 25-38, 1989
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · How we grade
- A Strong proof: Many good studies or long official data, from different teams or countries, point the same way.
- B Good proof, with limits: Solid studies agree on the direction, but the size varies, or the data covers few places or few kinds of people.
- C Mixed proof: Some good studies for, some against, or the evidence covers only part of the line.
- D Thin proof: Mostly one book’s argument, one survey or stories. It may be wise, but it has not been tested well.
- = True by the sums: It follows from arithmetic, so no study can overturn it. We still show what real data says.
Charles T. Munger, Poor Charlie’s Almanack (2005). In our words, not quoted.
See it in numbers: Your plan (From Zero)
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