“We buy things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t like.” –Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
One of my good buddies drove his car longer than anyone ever imagined.
Every time he showed up in his 1999 green Toyota Solara, our other friends would remark—“Dude, you’re still driving that thing?!”
Perhaps even more shocking, he drove it in the snow during the winter nearly 180 miles per day.
He had a good paying job and little debt, so most people could simply not understand why he would continue to drive the same car for 20+ years.
He took great care of it, detailing it regularly, had a nice stereo, and always had excellent tires.
By the time he finally bought a new car, he had racked up a whopping 469,000 miles.
When I asked him why he drove the car so long, he never gave much of an answer.
In a world where most of us are ceaselessly upgrading, I found his decision refreshing.
He has inspired my own journey to Keep Stuff Longer. It caused me to challenge myself to drive my own car longer, which is now more than 15 years old. Sure, my passengers can’t roll their windows up, and I sometimes have repair costs, but I haven’t come close to the mileage on that Toyota he drove!
Why should we keep stuff longer?
According to a May 2025 survey, 57% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
Estimates vary depending on the study, but nearly all of them seem to agree that we are spending more than we are making, with little room for unexpected bills.
What is sad about this is that we live in a country where abundance is the norm and some of our spending clearly amounts to self-inflicted wounds—significant stress that we are causing ourselves but for our lack of restraint.
I don’t know about you, but I think life has enough challenges without inviting additional, and optional, stressors.
The following are some good reasons to keep stuff longer:
- It saves you money. Our constant upgrading comes at a huge cost. In modern culture, we probably replace things way too early. And often we do this on credit, meaning we pay more for things because we pay so much interest. I don’t know many people these days who say they are too comfortable financially and looking for more ways to spend money. Keeping stuff longer is a great way to save money we desperately need for more important things like emergency funds, kids college, retirement, and generosity.
- You will have more time. When we buy things constantly, every single one of those new things may take time to store, organize, maintain, or insure. It’s easy to die a death of a thousand cuts with services like Amazon that allow us to accumulate things “same day,” and at the fastest speed in human history. The more things we have, the more time they take up.
- It helps the environment. Have you ever tried to get rid of stuff? It’s usually really hard and time consuming to purge household items without sticking them in a landfill. It’s much easier not to buy them in the first place.
- It’s better for your mental health. How much time do you spend per week thinking about new purchases or internet shopping? Anyone with a smart phone can now do this 24 hours a day. In 2024 TIME Magazine published an article Why Internet Shopping is Tanking Your Mental Health. This is undoubtedly a contributor to the growing anxiety and depression of the modern era. Shopping is often used as coping but is dangerous because it can reinforce the temporary dopamine pleasure hit we get from buying new things, but never lasts, thereby keeping us on what has been called the hedonic treadmill of unhappiness.
- Its better for your spiritual life. Every great spiritual tradition agrees that overindulgence in material things never really satisfies, and usually distracts us from the things that matter most. In some cases, poor financial choices can wreck your life. For example, the Bible mentions money and material things over 2300 times.
- Taking care of stuff causes you to value it more. Most psychological studies agree that the more time we spend caring for something increases our emotional attachment and perceived value of the object. I’ve noticed this as I’ve done more maintenance on my car or mountain bike. I tend to value it more because of how well I’ve taken care of it, repaired it, or serviced it. This can happen with people in your life too (some of us dispose of relationships nearly as quickly as our stuff). You can use sunk cost bias to your advantage by deliberately increasing your care for the things you already have.
- It helps us let go of status and ego. In 1913, cartoonist Arthur Mulmann first published his humorous comic strip “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Not much has changed in over 100 years. I admit I still struggle with this. I see something shiny and new that a friend or neighbor has, and I often feel that initial urge to rush out and get one. Giving up material status symbols can be life giving.
- It models less materialism for our kids. More is caught than taught, and helping kids learn healthy behaviors with stuff and money is one of the most important life skills we will ever give them. We need to model with our own lifestyles what we hope they will do with their lives.
- Rent more stuff…yes I used the R word. This is not a benefit per se, but an important consideration. In our culture the word “rent” seems like a curse word. But consider this…my friend recently shared a story about his parents RV. When they finally sold it and calculated the total payments, interest, storage fees, insurance, and maintenance costs, they realized they could have rented an RV several times a year or taken lots of extravagant vacations for much less money, all without the hassles, stress, and time taken by owning an RV. Most people don’t use these things nearly as much as they think they will (like vacation homes). A 2019 survey by Lending Tree showed that half of vacation home owners feel guilty about not using their vacation homes enough. Our culture is obsessed with ownership (which is a little funny given that most people only buy things with loans) without considering that it might be much better to rent in most cases.
Take action now
My friend Kelly has nearly 300,000 miles on his Honda Pilot and keeps servicing it.
My friend Dan plans to resole his Chaco sandals from high school.
My friend Eric still has clothes he wears that are 30 years old.
Even technology upgrades rarely bring something truly life changing.
Here is your challenge this week: Pick an item you’ve been thinking about replacing and make a commitment to keep it for one more year. It could be your car, clothing, technology, or a piece of sports gear. Maybe you service it instead of buying something new. Consider it an experiment and see what you notice. Tell a friend what you are doing. Get creative with it and have fun.
Have a great weekend!
Parker
- The More of Less by Josh Becker
- The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley and William Danko
- The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
