7 comments upper-middle-class people say that make them seem out of touch with reality (without realizing it)

I was at a networking event years ago when a colleague casually mentioned she was "so broke" after booking flights to Europe for her family's summer vacation.

She said this to a room that included an administrative assistant who'd just told us she was picking up extra weekend shifts to cover her car repair.

The disconnect was stunning.

But what struck me most was that my colleague had no idea what she'd just revealed about herself.

In her world, being "broke" meant having to be thoughtful about discretionary spending. She genuinely didn't realize how that sounded to someone for whom "broke" meant choosing between fixing the car and paying rent.

I've spent time in upper-middle-class circles during my finance career, and I've heard countless comments like this.

Statements that seem normal within a particular economic bubble but sound absurdly out of touch to anyone outside it.

These aren't necessarily bad people. They're just so insulated by their economic reality that they've lost perspective on how most people actually live.

And that disconnect shows up most clearly in offhand comments they make without thinking.

Here are seven things upper-middle-class people say that reveal just how out of touch they've become.

1) "Just hire someone to do that"

This comes up constantly. The lawn needs mowing? Hire someone. House needs cleaning? Hire someone. Taxes are complicated? Hire someone. Dog needs walking? Hire someone.

The assumption is that paying someone else to handle inconvenient tasks is the obvious solution that everyone would choose if they were being rational. The idea that most people can't afford to outsource basic household tasks doesn't even register.

I heard this most often around childcare. "Just get a nanny" or "why don't you hire a mother's helper?" said to people who were struggling to afford daycare, let alone private in-home care.

What makes this comment so revealing is the casual "just" as if the only barrier is not having thought of this brilliant solution. As if money isn't the actual obstacle preventing most people from hiring help for everything.

The upper-middle-class lives in a world where labor is cheap and abundant. They've outsourced so much of daily life maintenance that they've forgotten most people are doing all of it themselves while also working full-time.

2) "It's only $X"

I've heard "it's only $100" for a dinner. "It's only $50" for a boutique fitness class. "It's only $200" for a household item. The dollar amount that gets dismissed as trivial reveals everything about someone's financial reality.

For upper-middle-class people, certain price points don't even register as real money anymore. They're rounding errors. Amounts you don't think twice about spending on convenience or pleasure.

But for most people, $50 or $100 is a significant amount that requires budgeting and consideration. Spending that much on a single meal or a single workout class would be absurd when you're trying to make rent.

What makes "it's only" comments so out of touch is they reveal that someone has completely lost perspective on what money means to most people. They're living in an economic reality so different that normal price points don't even register.

3) "Why don't people just save more?"

This might be the most infuriating one. The idea that people struggling financially just aren't saving properly, as if the problem is financial literacy rather than insufficient income.

Upper-middle-class people who've always earned comfortable salaries genuinely don't understand living paycheck to paycheck. They've never had to choose between paying rent and buying groceries. They've never had an emergency expense completely derail their finances because there was no buffer.

From their perspective, saving is just a matter of discipline and priorities. They've saved since their first job, watched their money grow through compound interest, and assume anyone who isn't doing the same is simply being irresponsible.

What they don't grasp is that you can't save money you don't have. When your income barely covers basic expenses, there's nothing left to save. Every "emergency fund" article or financial advice column assumes you have discretionary income to set aside. Many people don't.

I fell into this thinking during my high-earning years. I couldn't understand why my friends weren't saving when I was putting away thousands monthly. It wasn't until my income dropped dramatically that I understood how differently money works when you're not making six figures.

4) "Just take a mental health day"

The casual suggestion to take time off work when you're stressed reveals enormous privilege. It assumes you have paid time off, understanding employers, and financial security to miss a day's wages.

Most people can't just take a day off. They don't have paid leave, or they've already used it, or they're hourly workers who won't get paid if they don't show up. Taking a "mental health day" could mean not making rent.

Upper-middle-class professionals often have generous PTO, flexible schedules, and jobs where taking a day off doesn't result in immediate financial consequences. They've normalized this as standard when it's actually a privileged position.

I heard this constantly in corporate environments. "You seem stressed, why don't you take tomorrow off?" said by people who'd never worried about losing income for missing work. The assumption was that everyone had the same flexibility and financial cushion they did.

What makes this particularly tone-deaf is how it frames mental health care as simply a choice anyone can make, ignoring the economic constraints that prevent most people from prioritizing rest over income.

5) "Real estate is such a good investment"

Casual conversations about investment properties, house flipping, or real estate portfolios reveal people who've completely forgotten that most people can't afford to buy even one home, let alone multiple properties as investments.

The upper-middle-class often treats real estate as an obvious wealth-building strategy. They discuss which markets are hot, whether to buy a rental property, or how much equity they're building. They genuinely don't realize most people are locked out of home ownership entirely.

The assumption that everyone can and should be building wealth through property ownership is so deeply embedded in upper-middle-class thinking that they don't even recognize it as a privileged position.

What makes these conversations particularly out of touch is how they treat housing as an investment vehicle rather than acknowledging that for most people, housing is a growing crisis of affordability and insecurity.

6) "You should really travel more, it's so important"

The suggestion that people aren't traveling enough or need to prioritize seeing the world reveals someone who's never had to choose between taking a vacation and paying bills.

Upper-middle-class people often frame travel as essential for personal growth, cultural understanding, and living a full life. They're genuinely puzzled when people say they can't afford to travel, as if it's a budgeting problem rather than an income problem.

What they don't grasp is that for many people, taking time off work means losing income they can't afford to lose. Even if the trip itself were free, they couldn't afford to not work for a week.

The assumption that everyone should be traveling regularly reveals how normalized international vacations have become for the upper-middle-class while remaining completely out of reach for most people.

7) "We're middle class, struggling just like everyone else"

This might be the most out of touch comment of all. Upper-middle-class people identifying as "middle class" or claiming to struggle financially when they're earning in the top 10-20% of incomes.

They genuinely believe they're middle class because they compare themselves to the truly wealthy rather than to median earners. They're not buying yachts or private jets, so they see themselves as normal, average people.

But someone earning $250,000 annually is not middle class by any reasonable definition. They're living a fundamentally different economic reality than actual middle-class or working-class people.

I heard this constantly in finance. People earning multiples of the median income complaining about taxes or saying money was tight after maxing out their retirement accounts and paying for private schools. They'd use "we're all in the same boat" language while describing financial situations that would be unimaginable luxury to most families.

What makes this so out of touch is the complete lack of awareness about where they actually sit in the income distribution. They've surrounded themselves with even wealthier people and lost all perspective on what normal actually means.

Final thoughts

These comments aren't usually malicious. They're the natural result of living in an economic bubble so complete that you forget how most people actually live.

If you find yourself making these kinds of comments, it might be worth asking whether you've lost perspective on how most people actually live. Economic bubbles are comfortable, but they create dangerous blind spots about reality.

And if you're on the receiving end of these comments, know that the disconnect isn't imaginary. It's real, it's significant, and it reveals just how different their world is from yours.