There's also the thing that what the game consides "Rich" and what you actually can achive in just one generation, is off.
The Goths, Landgraabs or Vlad, who own enormous houses, dresses in expensive clothing and so forth really has very very little money in the bank. You can have 10 times their funds before becoming an elder.
Vlad really should have like a million simolions. He's immortal, after all.
But again, and this is partly true IRL too: The happiest rich people are the ones that ignores the money (there's actually been IRL studys on this). Just play as normal. The only thing is that you don't have to worry about the bills...