Is not the same as a pauper and a prince.
The Small Life is a deliberate attempt to live with less than your means, to not be victimised by lifestyle inflation, and to live for yourself instead of making sure others see your wealth too.
Such people do not care whether others know about their net worth or not. They are simply too focused on growing it and too grown up in not showing it.
The Grand Life is a consistent path of keeping up with the Joneses. There is always something new we need to bring to home, something that needs an upgrade, and an item about which you cannot speak in front of a friend who makes meagre money.
Such people want to make sure others know them for how rich they are, even though their savings and investments are burning faster than fuel.
Technically, a lot of the times the ones living the Small Life are richer than the ones living the Grand Life.
See, living with the right tools is not wrong. Even the ones living the Small Life have great tools, only so much to an extent that they need them and they want it for themselves, not for show-off or to maintain a certain lifestyle.
In other times, it reminds me of the Rudyard Kipling quote, “Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”