The Difference Between Feeling Rich and Being Secure

You know someone who always looks successful. Nice car, nice clothes, nice apartment, frequent vacations. They seem to be doing well financially. They certainly look rich.

Then you learn they’re stressed about money constantly. One unexpected expense would be a crisis. They can’t afford to lose their job for even a month. The impressive lifestyle is funded by debt and a paycheck that barely covers it.

The problem isn’t that they’re spending too much—it’s that they optimized for feeling rich (visible wealth) instead of being secure (invisible stability), and these are fundamentally different goals.

The Problem

Feeling rich means your lifestyle signals success. You have the markers that indicate you’re doing well: new car, nice watch, good address, expensive experiences. These create the feeling of having made it.

Being secure means you could lose your income for six months and be fine. You have savings, low fixed costs, no concerning debt, multiple income options. This creates the reality of being stable.

Most people conflate these. They assume that looking successful means being successful. But in practice, they’re often inversely correlated. The person with the flashy lifestyle is frequently the one living paycheck to paycheck. The person with actual security often looks unremarkably middle-class.

You optimized for the wrong thing. You wanted to feel successful, so you bought the markers of success. But those markers require ongoing income to maintain, which makes you dependent on your job, which makes you insecure, which creates the stress you were trying to eliminate by feeling successful.

Why this happens to people who earn well

Research suggests that as income increases, people face social pressure to adopt the consumption patterns of their new peer group. This isn’t frivolous—it feels necessary. The car appropriate for someone at your level. The neighborhood where people like you live. The restaurants where work socializing happens.

Many people find that they unconsciously optimize for looking successful within their peer group while neglecting actual financial security. You’re comparing yourself to colleagues and neighbors, trying to keep up with visible markers of success, while your underlying financial situation remains fragile.

What you don’t realize is that the most financially secure people often deliberately avoid looking rich. They drive older cars, live in modest homes, wear unremarkable clothes. Not because they can’t afford better—because they’re optimizing for security rather than signaling, and signaling consumes resources that could build security.

The cruel irony is that feeling rich often prevents being secure. The money that goes to impressive consumption could go to building safety. But you can’t show off your emergency fund at dinner parties, so you buy the experience instead.

What Most People Try

The most common response is to try to achieve both: look successful AND be secure. Maintain the impressive lifestyle while also saving aggressively. Have the nice things while also building wealth.

This works only at very high incomes. For most people, you can optimize for one or the other, not both. The money either goes to looking rich or to being secure.

Then there’s the guilt-based restriction: you know you should spend less on visible consumption, so you try to cut back while maintaining the same lifestyle framework. Drive the nice car but feel bad about it. Live in the expensive apartment but constantly worry about the cost.

Some try to earn more to afford both looking rich and being secure. But many people find that as income increases, so does the baseline for “looking appropriate” at that level. You need an even nicer car, even better address. The goalpost moves faster than income grows.

Others try to hide their financial stress while maintaining appearances: use credit to cover gaps, avoid talking about money, project confidence while panicking privately about finances. This just adds psychological stress to financial stress.

The fundamental issue with all these approaches is they’re trying to reconcile incompatible goals without acknowledging that you have to choose which one matters more to you.

What Actually Helps

1. Decide which type of wealth you’re optimizing for

Right now, you’re probably trying to achieve both visible success and invisible security without consciously choosing between them. This creates internal conflict and often results in getting neither.

The shift is consciously deciding: do I want to feel rich or be secure? Different goals require different strategies.

Many people find that once they consciously choose, decision-making becomes much clearer. Opportunities to spend money become easy evaluations: does this move me toward my chosen goal?

Here’s how to start: Ask yourself honestly: what am I actually trying to achieve with money?

If the answer is “feel successful and have others see me as successful,” own that. Optimize for visible markers of success. Accept that this comes at the cost of security and stop stressing about savings. You’ve made your choice.

If the answer is “not worry about money and be able to handle unexpected events,” own that. Optimize for security. Accept that this means you’ll look less impressive than you could and stop comparing yourself to people optimizing for different goals.

Most people discover their stated goal is security but their actual spending pattern optimizes for feeling rich. This misalignment creates the stress. Align them—either change your spending to match security goals, or change your goals to match your spending and accept the lack of security.

2. Recognize that security is invisible by definition

Security is fundamentally invisible. You can’t show people your emergency fund. You can’t wear your paid-off debt. You can’t drive your diversified investments to work.

This means if you’re optimizing for security, you need to be comfortable looking unremarkable while being stable.

Research suggests that truly wealthy people—not rich-looking people, but people with actual financial security—often live below their visible means precisely because security is built through accumulated assets, not displayed consumption.

Many people find this psychologically difficult because humans are social creatures who signal status through consumption. Being secure while looking average requires actively resisting social pressure.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: Security means choosing the less impressive option even when you can afford the impressive one.

Drive the paid-off 10-year-old car even though you could afford a new one. The new car says “I can afford $600/month.” The old car represents “$600/month going to investments instead.”

Live in a smaller, cheaper place even though you qualify for more. The bigger mortgage says “I make good money.” The smaller place means you could survive six months unemployed without panic.

Wear unremarkable clothes even though you work with people who dress expensively. Their clothes say “I look successful.” Your clothes mean you’re funding security instead of appearance.

This requires being okay with people thinking you make less than you do or spend less than you could. That’s the price of security—it doesn’t impress anyone.

3. Build freedom, not lifestyle

The purpose of money isn’t to look successful—it’s to create freedom and options. But lifestyle consumption does the opposite: it creates obligations and dependencies.

The shift is measuring wealth not by what you can afford to buy, but by what you can afford to walk away from.

Many people find that real security comes from optionality: the freedom to leave a bad job, take time off, handle emergencies, make choices based on preference rather than financial necessity. This is what money actually provides if you use it for security rather than signaling.

Here’s how to start: Instead of asking “what can I afford?” ask “what would give me more options?”

Can afford: $3,000/month apartment. Creates freedom: $1,500/month apartment. The difference buys you options—freedom to leave your job if it becomes toxic, freedom to take a pay cut for better work-life balance, freedom to handle unexpected medical costs.

Can afford: $700/month car payment. Creates freedom: $0/month (paid off car). The difference means you’re not trapped in a job you hate because you have to make car payments.

Can afford: $200 dinner. Creates freedom: $40 dinner plus $160 to emergency fund. The expensive meal impresses people tonight. The emergency fund means you don’t panic when the car needs repairs.

Every dollar spent on looking successful is a dollar not spent on being secure. Every impressive purchase is traded optionality you won’t have when you need it. The question isn’t what you can afford—it’s whether the visible benefit is worth the invisible cost to your freedom.

The Takeaway

Feeling rich and being secure are different goals that require opposite strategies. Feeling rich means consuming to signal success—nice car, nice place, nice experiences. Being secure means accumulating to create stability—savings, low fixed costs, options. You can optimize for one or the other, rarely both. Decide which matters more, align your spending with that choice, and accept the tradeoff. If you choose security, you’ll look average while being stable. If you choose signaling, you’ll look impressive while being fragile. The most financially stressed people are often the ones who look the most successful, because success-signaling is expensive and security-building is invisible. Real wealth isn’t what you show others—it’s what lets you stop worrying about money.