I kind of always knew I was rich. I spent the first 6 years of my life in western China so there wasn't exactly an established wealthy area/neighborhood where new money could move to and old money resided. It was very apparent my family had a lot more than other families when you would visit other people's families and it was literally a concrete box.

I considered myself extremely fortunate, after the 2008 crisis we lost a significant amount of money but not enough to have to start budgeting or lower the quality of living. I now live in a Canadian city while enjoying a cushy life. And no, I don't live in Vancouver, we don't have ties to the Chinese government (great grand pa was a nationalist) , nor did our money come from corrupt practices (my dad was a young man teaching physics when the economic reforms happened so he went into business and sold electronics like rice cookers etc). I really realized I was rich once I settled into my life here in Canada and found out that everything I have, others had to work their asses off to get. I've had money wired into my account monthly for the past 8 years and I haven't worked a day during it. I lived in a newly built condo in a desirable area and all I do is run errands and brunch with my friends like I'm a 35 year old housewife lol.

I realized most of the responses so far has mentioned expensive items like vacations and private planes. These things were never a part of our lives because our discomfort with showing off wealth while surrounded by communist minded poor folks. We did not feel comfortable showing off even after we left simply because it had become habit I suppose. But to give you an idea, at one point in the mid 1990s, my dad was the richest man in the province (this obviously doesn't include corrupt government officials or those who made their money on the black market so really my dad was the richest non corrupt person, lol).