temperament
Wall off your speculation
The rule
If you must gamble, do it with a small, capped "fun" pot kept fully apart from your serious money.
Where it flips
But a "small" gambling account has a way of quietly growing and topping itself up. The fix is a firm, written cap that you never refill from serious money, however good the streak feels.
Graham knew the urge to gamble is human and hard to kill. So he gave it a safe cage: a small, fixed amount you can afford to lose fully, walled off from the money that runs your life and goals. That wall stops a losing bet from ever leaking into the money that must survive.
A worked example
Rohan sets aside 5% of his savings as a play account and never adds to it. When a hot bet there goes to zero, his real portfolio, the other 95% funding his goals, is completely untouched. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·a fixed, capped play-money pot
- ·never topped up from serious savings
- ·a loss there cannot touch the real plan
Benjamin Graham · The Intelligent Investor