To become a successful investor, one must have a unique approach to the market. As pointed out in William Green’s 1999 Money article, John Templeton’s approach to his personal finances and investing both relate to thrift:
Templeton’s attitude toward money has always been distinctive. . . . Templeton calls tithing the “single best investment” anyone can make and claims to give away $10 for each dollar he spends on himself. Obsessively thrifty, he boasts that he still flies coach: “I’ve got a lot of better ways to spend my money than on a bigger seat.” As a fund manager, he was famous among his employees for writing notes on scraps of used paper, which he’d staple together into notepads: “I never thought it was wise to waste anything. After my education I had absolutely no money, and neither did my bride. So we deliberately saved 50 cents out of every dollar.”
Templeton employs the same philosophy when he invests. . . . It was Templeton’s miserly eye for a bargain that led him into foreign markets other Americans spurned. In the 1950s, when Japan’s economy was reeling and many Japanese stocks were trading at a P/E of three, he figured it was the world’s cheapest market. He snapped up unwanted gems like Hitachi and Fuji Film, betting 60% of his fund’s assets in a country ridiculed for producing cheap knockoffs. By 1980, exuberant investors were piling into Japanese stocks, and Templeton, looking for cheaper buys, had almost entirely cashed out. He’d quintupled his money.
We continue our exploration of John Templeton’s twenty-one steps detailed in 
