Yes, owning your own business can be a good way to end up 'middle class' or 'comfortably poor'. But it works and that's good enough for me, and I never paid myself $500K per year either. And still had my first property paid off 20 years ahead of schedule.

Things that helped:

- ability to save

- driving cheap cars (my current daily driver is 20 years old)

- very little debt (usually only to finance the next property)

- buying quality stuff and what I need

- living in a country where healthcare can't bankrupt you

- with free education (though that is changing now)

- making reasonably good money because of my chosen profession

None of the above would matter much if I would work as a store clerk or something like that, that's a much harder situation to get out of.