Many people are learning a painful lesson about the difference between having “things” and having wealth.

When the economy is booming, money is easy to earn and credit is flowing freely, the urge to buy more things can be enticing. But just because you can buy a bigger house, a new car or the latest electronic gadgets doesn’t mean you can afford to own them. With each new purchase comes additional cost of ownership — expenses like taxes, licenses, maintenance and utilities.

This is a lesson many first-time home buyers have learned during the past couple of years. In 2004-05, when interest rates were at historic lows and credit was easy to obtain, many lifelong renters bought their first homes. A lot of them didn’t understand that home ownership involves much more than just making the mortgage payments.

As renters, they never had to worry about the cost of replacing a failed furnace, heat pump or a hot water heater. They didn’t have to save to replace the roof shingles or carpet. These costs were all born by the landlord, which is one reason rents are usually higher than mortgage payments.

Cars, boats, planes and resort properties all come with additional cost of ownership. The secret to increasing your standard of living is to acquire such things with income from passive investments. The order of events for a successful life is work, earn, invest and then buy. You must first work to earn money, then invest part of the money and be willing to wait until the earnings from your investments are adequate to cover the cost of ownership of the things that improve your level of comfort.

In today’s society too many people work, earn money and then spend. Because of this, they never have enough to invest and as a result never enjoy the security that comes from having an income stream for which they don’t have to work. Buying things without investments to cover the cost of ownership nearly always results in having to work harder to make ends meet and then ultimately having to reduce your lifestyle in retirement when earnings drop. It’s known as living paycheck-to-paycheck, or as some would say, “living on a treadmill.”

There’s a big difference between earning a living and building wealth. Some people earn enormous incomes but never build wealth, yet a number of modest wage earners are able to build substantial wealth. Building wealth takes patience.

As a nation, Americans have forgotten the value of patience. Many of the economic problems we are currently experiencing are the direct result of a nation bloated with excesses and unwilling to adjust its standard of living to what it could afford. Call it karma, chance, fate, destiny or any other term you want, but when common sense is replaced with greed and self-indulgence, market conditions will eventually seek balance and force a correction. That’s what we are now experiencing.

Here’s a tip: If your ox is in a ditch, you won’t get it out by whining and complaining. The same holds true if your finances are under water and you feel like you are about to drown. The only way to improve either situation is to change what you’re doing.

The start of a new year is a great time to pause and carefully analyze spending in relation to income. If you borrowed money the previous year to support your lifestyle, continuing that same lifestyle another year will more than likely to put you deeper in debt. The only way to correct the problem is to earn more or spend less.

Try living one year on 90 percent of your income and investing the other 10 percent. At the end of that year, you will feel much better because your debt will be smaller and you will have some money in the bank. Remember the recipe for success: Work, earn, invest and then buy.

Mike Summey is co-author of McGraw-Hill Publishing’s international bestselling Weekend Millionaire book series. He can be reached at successtips@aol.com or you can visit his Web site, www.weekendmillionaire.com.