The second richest man in the world

Warren Buffett is currently the 2nd richest man in the world after Bill Gates. He has pledged his billions to charity, once again proving that the wealthiest  people are usually the most generous. BBC2 TV showed an amazing interview and documentary about him last week. What was amazing, was how normal and down to earth he is, truly the billionaire next door.

The BBC show is called: The World's Greatest Money Maker: Evan Davis meets Warren Buffett, It was broadcast 2100 Monday 26 October and 1120PM Tuesday 27 October on BBC Two.

The BBC website printed a great article about Warren Buffett. A few things the article highlighted were:

• He was able to negotiate some great deals because he had a ready supply of cash in the bank.
  
• He invests for the very long term. He says investments should be treated as if you are going to own them for over 100 years.
  
• He always leaves a "margin of safety", in his deals, so that if things don't work out as he'd hoped, he does not lose money.

The official biography of Warren Buffet The Snowball has now been re-released in paperback and only costs £6.59 from Amazon. Its on my upcoming reading list. Warren Buffett credits much of his success to the book The Intelligent Investor which currently sells for £8.31 on Amazon.

Warren Buffett is the great tortoise of finance. He is worth $40bn and at 80 years old is ultimate proof that the surest way to get rich, is by doing it slowly. He didn't make his money by trying to be smart using super-secret strategies. He kept things simple, and made modest investments. He did not seek out high returns, using risky leverage (debt). Instead, Buffett went for a steady annual compounding of increases, avoiding debt,  and this has worked out better overall. The next time I feel impatient and want my investment strategies to pay off now, rather than many years down the line, I shall remember that getting rich is a long, slow process, just like it was for Buffett.