That's half the road, which is the OP's point. We all know tons of people who earn a ton of money, but they never get rich or free because they keep ratcheting up their spending.
The road to wealth is spending dramatically less than you make in an ongoing way.
"Mr Micawber's famous, and oft-quoted, recipe for happiness:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/9066005/W...
Edit: didn't only remember of it myself, bradshaw1965 beat me to it: