Charlie Munger called Benjamin Franklin one of his heroes for most of his adult life. He even named his famous collection of speeches Poor Charlie’s Almanack as a nod to Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack.
What drew Munger to Franklin was simple. Franklin got rich the slow and honest way, then spent his money and time on things that mattered to him. These five lessons from Franklin’s life are ones Munger thought every man should study.
1. Aim to Live Usefully Before You Worry About Dying Rich
Franklin saw money as a way to buy his independence. At 42, he handed off the daily work of his printing business because he had saved enough to live on.
He didn’t sit around idle. Franklin poured the next four decades into electricity experiments, local civic projects, diplomacy in Europe, and the founding of a country that didn’t exist when he was born.
He told his mother exactly where his priorities sat. In a 1750 letter, Franklin wrote, “I would rather have it said, He lived usefully, than, He died rich.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Munger agreed with that ranking. He gave away huge sums to schools and hospitals, and he believed a good life came from small daily gains in judgment that pile up over decades.
He once told a graduating class at USC, “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up.” (Charlie Munger) A man who knows what his money is for will spend his best years very differently from a man who only knows the balance.
2. Debt and Envy Will Trap You in a Financial Negative Spiral
Franklin hated debt. In The Way to Wealth, published in 1758, he warned readers over and over against buying fine clothes and fancy goods on credit. His line on lenders still stings. Franklin wrote, “Creditors have better memories than debtors.” (Benjamin Franklin)
He pushed the point even harder in the same book. “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Munger went after the emotion that pushes men into debt in the first place. A coworker buys a boat. A brother-in-law moves into a bigger house, and suddenly a perfectly good life feels small.
Munger thought this was ridiculous. He said, “Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at.” (Charlie Munger)
He was just as wary of borrowing to invest. Munger spent decades warning that buying stocks with borrowed money can turn a temporary drop into a wipeout you never recover from.
3. Invert and Study How Men Fall Into Ruin
As a young man, Franklin drew up a list of thirteen virtues and kept a small book to track them. Every day, he put a mark next to each virtue he had failed at. The marks piled up fast.
He was honest about what the book showed him. Franklin admitted in his autobiography, “I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Munger built a favorite thinking tool on the same instinct. He borrowed “invert, always invert” from the mathematician Carl Jacobi and applied it to business, investing, and his own life.
The method is to flip the question around. Instead of asking how to succeed, ask what would guarantee failure, then avoid it. Munger put it this way: “All I want to know is where I’m going to d*e, so I’ll never go there.” (Charlie Munger)
Applied to money, this means paying attention to how other men went broke. Gambling wrecks some of them. Others go under because of a bad business partner, a divorce they never planned for, or a lifestyle that grew a little every year until the income couldn’t keep up.
4. Compound Your Knowledge Through Lifelong Reading
Franklin left school around age 10 and taught himself almost everything he knew. He read about science, French, writing with style, politics, and trade.
The habit started early. He wrote, “From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.” (Benjamin Franklin)
In 1731, he helped start the Library Company of Philadelphia so tradesmen could pool their money and share books none of them could buy alone. Franklin treated what he learned like capital that kept paying him back.
Munger’s own children joked that he was a book with a couple of legs sticking out. He believed wisdom builds the same way a good investment does. The early years feel slow, and the later years feel like a quantum leap in connecting that knowledge with the right action.
He didn’t soften this point. Munger said, “In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time, none, zero.” (Charlie Munger)
He also liked to talk about making friends with great historical figures by reading their work. Franklin was near the top of that list for him.
5. Practice Intellectual Humility and Correct Your Mistakes
Franklin loved winning arguments when he was young. He eventually noticed it cost him friends and kept him from learning, so he changed how he talked to people and his motive to want to be right about everything.
He described the change in his autobiography. He wrote, “I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Munger saw this as a real edge for an investor. Plenty of men hold a losing stock for years because selling means admitting they were wrong.
He urged people to attack their own beliefs on purpose. Munger said, “Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.” (Charlie Munger)
His bar for holding an opinion was high. Munger explained, “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” (Charlie Munger)
Conclusion
Franklin died in 1790. Munger died in 2023, more than two centuries later, still reading and still giving his opinions at age 99.
The two men handled money in much the same way. They stayed out of debt, ignored what the neighbors were buying, studied other people’s mistakes, read constantly, and were willing to admit when they had something wrong.
Franklin’s printing shop paid for his freedom at 42. What a man does with that kind of freedom is the part both of them cared about most.