Yesterday I spent the afternoon at the car dealership getting a warranty repair done on the front end of my 2010 Mazda CX-7. This vehicle has 218,000 miles on it and it still runs and drives like new! I get picked on from time to time, people wanting to know why I don’t go buy a new car. I could do that, but here’s why I don’t.

About three to four years ago, I started looking around at the people that have more money than I do and ask myself two simple questions:

1) What are they doing that I’m not doing?
2) What are they not doing that I am doing?

When it comes to money it’s really pretty simple; how much do you earn, how much do you make, how much do you keep?

Earning money and making money is different. Earning money means working by the hour, having a job. Making money means passive streams of income not tied to the hours you spend; things like interest, rental income, dividends, etc. We’ll get to all of that another time.

The how much you keep part is what this is all about. As I look around at people that have money, I began to notice they are really good at keeping it. They don’t buy new cars for example. Even Warren Buffet, one of the richest people in the world drives Cadillacs, not Bentleys or Mercedes. He also drives them a long time.

When I realized that the richer people around keep their cars for a long time, I decided to do that too. The results are great! I don’t have a car payment (nor have I have one for 7 years). I don’t even need to pay for collision anymore, the car isn’t worth enough to bother. What I do have are very low car expenses so I have more money to save and invest.

Every month I keep that car is another month I save money. I’m hoping to make it to 300,000 miles, smiling all the way to the bank