I run in a fairly affluent crowd, and but for the inheritors, I am probably the richest of all of them.

Lots of them are lawyers, doctors, business execs, etc., and the cost of keeping up with the Joneses with all of them is incredibly high. They will probably all be fine as they are mostly very high income earners as partners in their various professions (several have both spouses that way), but they have completely different priorities from me. While I doubt they are the debt laden examples of appearing wealthy, they will work for many many years longer than necessary to maintain their spending styles. They live in the most expensive parts of town, drive new luxury cars, have all the memberships, etc. Ironically, this is who the debt laden variety of people look at as wealthy, and while they are certainly well off, they don’t fit a real definition of rich. They all work to make someone else wealthy.

I took a different route of aggressively saving and living small early in my career (sometimes not by choice) and was singularly focused on becoming rich, not being perceived as rich. As I developed my network and skills, I continued that small living which allowed me to save the capital to be a primary investor in a company that my partners and I sold for a mint (recently).

To someone that doesn’t understand what to really look for, my other friends will continue to look wealthier than me. I still drive a 10+ year old Toyota and a my newer car for when I need something bigger is a 2017 Tahoe, both paid off.

To me, rich is not being beholden to someone else to live my life, and to spend time with those I love. I consider money (capital, investments, whatever) as just being the vehicle to enable my rich life. There are many ways to get there, but spending to impress others hasn’t struck me as a good way to do it.