Maintenance

It's all about maintenance.  If you want to keep yourself and your things running well do the routine maintenance.  Maintenance helps reduce wear and tear and brings new life to things.  When I was a kid, my parents bought me a cheap coat after about a year some part of it started to come apart.  I kept on wearing it until one day my mother saw the growing damage and told me to take it off.  She mended it and it lasted quite a while longer.  It was a life lesson to me.  Things can be  fixed!  Now every summer I have a huge pile of  mending for my free time.  I sit on the sofa in front of the TV and sew buttons and make minor repairs.  I'm no seamstress but there are things I can do.  In the meantime my husband is outside working on the car.  He checks the fluids and changes filters and washes and cleans the car inside and out.  He treats the leather to keep the interior in good shape. The car is older now but it still looks and runs great. 
The same is true of people.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  I found a good clinic two blocks from my house.  Since I have heart problems, it's important that I take care of any upper respiratory infections in a timely manner.   For a couple of bucks, I can get the antibiotics that get rid of a bad cough.  It's cheaper than landing in the hospital with pneumonia or something.  Little things handled in a timely manner can stay little.  Whereas if you let them go they can become big and expensive.  Keeping up on home repairs saves more expense later on. Changing the fluids on the car, keeps the engine from damage.  Keeping healthy and handling small problems quickly, keeps the wallet from getting damaged.