I thought I was upper middle class until I met actually wealthy people—these 7 things showed me the truth

Growing up, I genuinely believed my family had made it. We lived in a nice suburban house, took annual vacations, and never worried about keeping the lights on. My parents had worked their way up from working-class roots through education and determination, and by the time I was in high school, I thought we were killing it financially.

I carried this belief well into my twenties. Even after university, when I was shifting TVs in a Melbourne warehouse and questioning everything about my career path, I still thought my family background was pretty well-off. We weren't struggling like some of my coworkers. We had savings. We owned property.

Then I moved to Singapore to start a business with my brothers.

That's when everything changed. Suddenly, I was surrounded by people who operated on a completely different financial level. Not just comfortable or successful, but genuinely wealthy in ways that made me realize I'd been living in a bubble my entire life.

The gap between what I thought was "upper middle class" and actual wealth was staggering. It wasn't just about having more money. It was about living in an entirely different reality.

Here are the seven things that opened my eyes to what real wealth looks like.

1. They don't check prices

The first time I went to dinner with a genuinely wealthy friend in Singapore, I watched him order without looking at the right side of the menu. Not once. He ordered what he wanted, suggested wines based on taste rather than price point, and when the bill came, he glanced at it for about half a second before putting down his card.

Meanwhile, I was doing mental math, calculating my share and wondering if ordering the seafood special would blow my budget for the week.

This wasn't about being flashy or careless with money. He simply didn't need to think about whether a $300 dinner would impact his finances. The same way I don't think twice about buying a coffee.

That's when it hit me: true wealth means money stops being a daily consideration. You're not reckless, but you're also not constantly calculating. The mental bandwidth I spent on financial decisions, they spent on other things entirely.

2. Work is optional, not survival

Here's something that really messed with my head: most of the wealthy people I met in Singapore worked harder than anyone I knew. But here's the kicker: they didn't have to.

They worked because they wanted to, not because stopping would mean financial ruin. One friend took a two-year sabbatical to study philosophy and travel. Another shut down a profitable business because it wasn't fun anymore and started something completely different.

In my book [Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego](https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Secrets-Buddhism-Maximum-Minimum-ebook/dp/B0BD15Q9WF), I explore how attachment to outcomes creates suffering. But I never truly understood this until I saw people who could detach from work because their survival didn't depend on it.

Meanwhile, even in my "comfortable" upbringing, there was always an underlying current of necessity. My parents never stopped working. A job loss would have been catastrophic. We were comfortable, but we were still dependent on that next paycheck.

3. Their problems cost more than my solutions

A wealthy acquaintance once complained about a "nightmare" situation: the renovation of his vacation home was running three months behind schedule. The delay was costing him around $30,000 in extended hotel stays because he'd already sold his other property.

He spoke about this sum like I'd talk about a parking ticket. Annoying, but not devastating.

That $30,000? That was more than many people's annual income. It was definitely more than I'd managed to save in my first few years of working. But to him, it was just an inconvenience fee, the cost of a scheduling conflict.

This wasn't him being out of touch. It was just his reality. Problems that would destroy most people's finances were just minor annoyances in his world.

4. They buy time, not things

You know what surprised me most about wealthy people? They often owned less stuff than my middle-class friends.

But they bought time constantly. Private jets to avoid airport hassles. Full-time assistants to handle life admin. Services for everything: personal shoppers, house managers, drivers. Not because they were lazy, but because their time was genuinely worth more than the cost of outsourcing.

One friend calculated that hiring a full-time assistant at $60,000 per year allowed him to focus on work that generated millions. It wasn't an expense; it was an investment with massive ROI.

Growing up, we did everything ourselves. Mowed our own lawns, cleaned our own houses, spent weekends on errands. We called it being self-sufficient. Now I realize we just couldn't afford to value our time properly.

5. They plan for generations, not years

Want to know a conversation that never happened in my household growing up? Setting up trust funds for grandchildren who didn't exist yet.

But this is standard dinner table talk among the truly wealthy. They discuss estate planning, generational wealth transfer, and setting up structures to protect assets for descendants they'll never meet.

One friend spent six figures on legal fees to establish a family trust that won't fully vest for 80 years. He was planning for his great-grandchildren's financial security.

Meanwhile, my parents were focused on making sure they could retire without being a burden. Maybe leave something for us kids. The idea of planning multiple generations ahead? That wasn't even on the radar.

6. Risk means something completely different

When wealthy people talk about "risky" investments, they mean potentially losing money they can afford to lose. When middle-class people talk about risk, they mean potentially losing everything.

I watched a wealthy friend lose $2 million on a failed startup. His response? "Well, that was educational." He moved on to the next investment within a month.

If my family had lost $2 million? We wouldn't have had $2 million to lose in the first place. But even losing $200,000 would have been catastrophic, life-altering, possibly unrecoverable.

This different relationship with risk is why the rich get richer. They can take the big swings that potentially yield huge returns. The rest of us? We're too busy protecting what little we have.

As I explore in [Hidden Secrets of Buddhism: How To Live With Maximum Impact and Minimum Ego](https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Secrets-Buddhism-Maximum-Minimum-ebook/dp/B0BD15Q9WF), true freedom comes from non-attachment. But it's a lot easier to practice non-attachment when losing doesn't mean destruction.

7. Their network is their real wealth

The final revelation? The truly wealthy don't just have money. They have access.

Need a specialist doctor? They know the head of the hospital. Legal trouble? They went to school with a Supreme Court justice's son. Want your kid in a top university? They golf with someone on the board.

This network isn't just about favors. It's about information, opportunities, and solutions that money alone can't buy. They hear about investments before they go public. They get invited to deals that never hit the open market.

My middle-class network was valuable too: friends who could help with a move, colleagues who might know about job openings. But it was a different league entirely. We traded favors. They traded opportunities worth millions.

Final words

Realizing the vast gulf between upper middle class and true wealth was humbling, but also liberating. It helped me understand that the game has different rules at different levels, and that's okay.

I'm grateful for my background. Watching my parents navigate financial challenges with grace taught me resilience. That warehouse job in Melbourne taught me humility. Building a business from scratch taught me that there are many definitions of success.

True wealth isn't just about money. But let's be honest: having enough money that it stops being a daily concern changes everything about how you move through the world.

The most valuable lesson from all of this? Understanding where you really stand financially helps you make better decisions. Stop comparing yourself to the wrong benchmarks. Stop feeling "rich" or "poor" based on incomplete information.

Know your reality, plan accordingly, and remember that wealth is relative. But also recognize that real wealth operates in a completely different universe than most of us will ever inhabit.

And that's perfectly fine.