20 Timeless Money Maxims

CNN Money has 20 Timeless Money Rules on their website this morning. I will spare you the whole list and give you my top five:

1. Be Humble - Know what you don't know and admit your mistakes....or you could do what all the cool kids do. Start a blog about it!

When you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is knowledge.
--Confucius

2. Take Calculated Risks - I have always been been a proponent of taking calculated risks. Now I just need to get some more money to take some more calculate risks.

He that is overcautious will accomplish little.
--Friedrich von Schiller

3. Have an Emergency Fund - I learned this lesson the hard way when I was layed off from my job about a year and a half ago. I am still paying for this mistake.

For age and want, save while you may; no morning sun lasts a whole day.
--Benjamin Franklin

4. Practice Patience - Even the mortgage woes that we are facing now are only temporary. I am actually finding myself reading less and less about the day to day movements of the stock-market. A fortune cookie once told me - Patience is a virtue.

It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It was always my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!
--Edwin Lefevre

5. Keep Money In Its Place - Money is great and all, but it won't buy you happiness. It won't buy you time back with loved ones. This "rule" (if I can even call it that) has been at the front of my mind lately. Why should I work 60 hours a week when I can work 40 and make a decent living and have time for personal revival and time with friends. As soon as we start looking at money as the end, we start to neglect the relationships that feed our true sense of purpose.

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
--Jonathan Swift