Keeping Up With My Joneses Part 1 – The Car Guy

One of my friends is a very successful, well paid professional; who travels overseas at least 3-4 times a year, has a gorgeous apartment filled with beautiful things and drives a luxury convertible. He just loves luxury cars, we talk about them all the time (I’m a bit of a car nut myself).

He’s very smart with his money. His car is fantastic, its 12 years old though, not brand new. He bought it second hand ages ago and he just loves it. It’s just so him. He’d like a new one some day, but is perfectly happy with what he has right now, and works towards anything new he wants.

He works incredibly hard. His travels are how he loves to spend his downtime, visiting his family and friends all over the world. He comes back with so many stories and experiences.

He’s incredibly generous with his time. He helped me buy my first car last year, spending numerous weekends driving me around town test driving cars under $5000, and he genuinely enjoyed it. He also talked me around from wanting to spend $10,000 for my first car, so he saved me $5000 in effect.

He enjoys the simple things as much as the big shiny things. He spent a very pleasant yet simple evening at my place fixing my rickety dining table and eating the dinner I made with gusto (I’m a good cook though, so he’s only human). He also enjoyed jetting off to Europe to go to a car show with some friends for a couple of weeks not long after.

How have I incorporated his way of life into my own?

Living within my means is an obvious goal I’m working on, buying quality over quantity, working hard for the things that bring you genuine pleasure in life, and remembering to enjoy the simple things.

Why wouldn't I want to ‘keep up with this Jones’?

This is part 1 of my series Is Keeping Up With ‘The Joneses’ A Bad Thing? In order to protect the privacy of my ‘Joneses’ I've tried to be as generic as possible about their particulars.

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