The Richest Man in Babylon, Retold for 2026 (Part 2): Step Over the Dimes

This is Part 2 of a 7-part series where I'm retelling the money lessons from The Richest Man in Babylon as a story set in 2026. If you missed it, start with Part 1: The Freedom Account.

Quick catch-up: Marcus is 34, makes decent money, and is broke by Wednesday every week. Last Saturday he walked down the road to ask Jim, the neighbor who never seems stressed about money, how he does it.

Jim gave him rule number one: a part of all you earn is yours to keep. Marcus cancelled two streaming apps and started a $34-per-payday freedom account.

Then Jim told him to come back next Saturday and bring his bank statement.

Marcus showed up at the shop at 9 a.m. with three pages folded in his back pocket. Jess came too. She'd heard about the lawn chairs and wanted to meet this guy for herself.

Jim handed Marcus a yellow highlighter.

"Go down the list. Highlight everything that's going to cost you money again next month."

Marcus started highlighting. The truck payment. The SUV payment. Rent. Two phone plans. Car insurance. The couch. Visa. Four streaming apps. DoorDash. DoorDash. DoorDash.

By the bottom of page two, the highlighter was running dry.

"Okay," Jim said. "Now tell me what's left over."

Marcus didn't answer. Jess did. "Nothing. Some months it's less than nothing."

"That's rule number two," Jim said. "The old book says it like this: control thy expenditures. In plain English, you have to spend less than you earn."

"Most people do the exact opposite. That's why so many people end up in the hole."

"There's a line in that chapter I love. 'What each of us calls our necessary expenses will always grow to equal our incomes unless we protest to the contrary.'"

Jess laughed. "That's literally us. Every raise, we just found a bigger payment."

"That's everybody," Jim said. "Saving is the money you keep. Spending is the money that goes out. They're in a tug-of-war, and the rope is your freedom. Whichever side you've got the stronger emotions tied to is the side that wins."

"And only one side gets you there."

Marcus held up the statement. "I don't even feel like we spend that much. It just kind of goes."

"Sure. Most people think about what something costs today and what it gives them today. They never run the numbers on what it costs them five or ten years from now."

"Then there's keeping up with the Joneses. The neighbor gets a new truck, and all of a sudden your truck looks old."

"And here's the big one. Most people are disconnected from their money. It's painful to look at how little you have, so you don't look. You swipe the card, because the card gives you the feeling that you have money."

"But that feeling is an illusion. One day the bill comes due. The piper always gets paid."

Marcus thought about pump 6 and didn't say anything.

"Snoop Dogg had it right back in the '90s," Jim said. "Mind on my money and my money on my mind. Best financial advice most people never take."

Jess pulled out her phone. "Okay, so we start couponing. I've seen those people who walk out with $300 of groceries for nine bucks."

Jim shook his head.

"There's a phrase that changed everything for my wife and me. Stepping over dollars to pick up dimes."

"Most people scrimp on the small stuff. They clip coupons to save a few cents on a meal. Meanwhile they walk right past the big stuff, the house payment, the car payments, & the credit payments, where the real money leaks out every single month."

"So we flipped it. We stepped over the dimes to pick up the dollars."

"That's why we lived in a single-wide trailer. We didn't want six figures of our own hard work flushed down the toilet to a bank. And we bought used cars we could pay cash for."

"Coupons are fine. But they're dimes. Your truck payment is a dollar. Your housing is the biggest dollar you've got."

Marcus folded the statement. "We actually got pre-approved for a house last month. Two-fifty. The payment didn't look too bad."

Jim pulled a calculator out of his workbench drawer. A real one, with buttons.

"Years ago I worked with a company that helped people get out of debt. They had this illustration that showed how much interest the typical homeowner pays on a 30-year mortgage. It added up all the interest, compared it to the price of the house, and then asked one question."

"Does that look like 6%? Or does that look more like 80%?"

"It looked like 80%. I couldn't believe everybody was okay with throwing that much money away. That's when I saw the difference between short-term and long-term thinking with money."

"Let's run yours."

He punched in the numbers. A $250,000 house. Nothing down. A 30-year fixed loan at 7.24%, right around the national average this fall.

The monthly payment came out to about $1,704.

"Now multiply that by 360 months."

About $613,000.

"Take out the price of the house."

About $363,000. In interest alone.

Jim turned the calculator around so they could both see it.

"So. Does that look like 7.24%? Or does it look more like 145%?"

Jess put her hand over her mouth.

"You'd pay for that house," Jim said, "and then you'd pay for it again, plus some. And the second house goes to the bank."

(Quick note: that's just the loan. Property taxes and insurance come on top, and a down payment or extra payments would cut the interest. But the point stands. The quoted rate hides the real cost.)

"So what, we live in a box and eat rice?" Marcus said. He was only half joking.

"Let me ask you something," Jim said. "How did you feel at pump 6?"

Marcus didn't answer.

"That feeling, being in the hole with no cash to speak of? That's deprived. You can buy all the stuff you want on a credit card, but deep down your soul feels deprived. The stuff is a sugar high. It wears off fast."

"When you live below your means, your cash, your equity and your net worth grow every single month. And there's no better feeling in the world than knowing you've got money in the bank."

"Here's what I mean. Back when we lived in that trailer, we needed a new washer and dryer. We bought one of the nicest sets of front loaders we could find. A couple thousand bucks. Paid cash."

"We knew kids were coming, and we wanted something that would last us for years."

"We lived in a trailer, but we had the cash to buy the things that mattered. That gave us a feeling of abundance you just can't get on a payment plan."

"Most financial advisors will tell you to be conservative," Jim said. "Look for little ways to save. Clip the coupons. Skip the latte."

"But if you want a radical result, you have to be willing to think radically different. You have to go all in on the idea of financial freedom."

"Stop asking, 'What's a little decision I can make?' Start asking, 'What are the biggest, most impactful decisions I can make to get to freedom as fast as possible?'"

That night, Marcus and Jess sat at the kitchen table with the highlighted statement between them.

They didn't touch the grocery budget. They didn't print a single coupon.

Jess looked up the SUV payoff. Marcus looked up what it would sell for. If it sold for more than they owed, they could buy a decent used car with the difference, pay cash, and the SUV payment would be gone. Every month. For good.

And the house? They decided to wait. Not forever. Just until they could buy one without paying for it twice.

For the first time in a long time, Marcus felt like he was running the money instead of the money running him.

Okay, back to you and me.

Part 1 was about paying yourself first. This one is about plugging the big leaks, so there's actually something left to pay yourself with.

Here's your homework. Grab your last bank statement and a highlighter (or just scroll through your banking app) and ask yourself:

What's the biggest expense I could eliminate? Not the smallest. The biggest.

Could you sell a car and buy a cheaper one you can pay cash for?

What would life look like in a smaller house? Or even a trailer house. How much faster would your net worth grow if your monthly rent or house payment went into the bank instead?

You don't have to do all of it this week. Pick the one decision that would make the biggest difference, and start working on it.

Step over the dimes. Go pick up the dollars.

Before they left, Jess asked the question Marcus was already thinking.

"Okay. Say we do all this. We cut the big stuff and the money piles up in the freedom account. Then what? It just sits there?"

Jim smiled. "Robert Kiyosaki has a line for that. Savers are losers."

"Come back next Saturday. I'll show you what he meant, and how an old little motorbike can teach you more about money than most financial advisors."

In Part 3, Jim shows Marcus and Jess how to make their money multiply, why a 12% return isn't as impressive as it sounds, and how his son spots deals most people walk right past.

Until then, tell me in the comments: what's the biggest "dollar" you've been stepping over?

Thanks for reading and whatever you do, always go for your dreams!