DON’T RUN OUT OF MONEY: A Simple Rule for Families, Companies, and Countries That Last (The Trust Series)

In 1976 my father sat eight children down in the family room and told us he did not know how to make ends meet anymore. He never spoke of it again.

Everything in this book follows from that evening. A family, a company, a charity, and a country all fail the same way. The money runs out before the promises do.

Don't Run Out of Money is one rule, told through one life. A mother who fed ten people on four hundred dollars a month. A payroll paid in cash and signed by thumbprint under a half-built library outside São Paulo. A first home bought at two and a half times income. A bank that closed on a Friday, and a board that spent the weekend ready to write checks. A lecture in Kigali with no slides, and a hospital doctor who greeted the author the next morning with five words: "Don't run out of money."

George W. Bickerstaff, III has been chief financial officer six times, including at Novartis Pharma AG, and has served on more than forty boards. He writes for anyone who has made a promise to someone else: a parent, a founder, a director, a trustee, a graduate starting out. The book is short, plain, and personal. Each of its twenty chapters ends with a simple drawing, three things to take away, and three things to do.

It asks the reader five questions and, at the end, answers them for the author's own household.

• What share of the promises you have made has money behind it?
• How many months could you last if your income stopped?
• Is any one source more than half of your income?
• Are you saving anywhere that someone matches what you put in?
• Does your family know the truth about the money?

The book closes on the cost of getting the rule right, and on a hospital room in Pittsburgh where a son finally said what he owed his father.

Keep the promise. Do not let it keep you.

Part of The Trust Series.