The 10%.

How much? A tenth.

Talk 3 said pay yourself first, and dodged the question: how much? Here's the famous answer, and it sounds almost too simple. Ten percent.

Same book as last time. Babylon: "a part of all you earn is yours to keep, and let it be not less than a tenth." Ten percent.

Why it lasted 4,000 years: small enough that you adapt to living without it in a month or two, big enough that, given time, it becomes something that changes your life. Small to give up, big to receive. That's why it's ten and not fifty.

Not a rule. A starting point.

Real talk: maybe 10% isn't possible right now. If it isn't, one percent paid first beats zero percent every time. The number isn't the point, the habit is. Start where you actually are.

I'm not going to tell you to save 10% of money you don't have. Ten percent is a famous starting point, not a law, and definitely not something diBoaS is telling you to do. You pick the number.

Where the pieces click.

Now three things click together: 10% (this talk), paid first (Talk 3), pointed at a goal and left to compound (Talks 2 and 1).

Here's an illustration, and it is only that. Ten percent of a $3,000 paycheck (use your own) is $300 a month. Paid first, at a careful 7%, twelve years is an estimate of around $66,000. Not a promise, an estimate. The real cost of not starting was never the $300 a month, it was the ~$66,000 you skipped.

So don't take my $300 and my 12 years. Put in your own paycheck, your percentage, your years, and point it at the goal you named in Talk 2.

I run diBoaS, so check the math yourself.

Small to give up, big to matter.

See your own number?

Ten percent. Small enough to give up, big enough to matter. Paid first, pointed at a goal, left to grow. That's the whole engine, running.

But where does the 10% come from if your money is already spoken for? You make room. There's a classic way to think about that, and it's Talk 5.