Passing boolean from one View controller to another, both controlled by a Tab Controller

I've been looking at other questions/answers around this and I can't seem to find an answer thats worked for me. I'm making a game where you click a pizza and you generate money. You start off with only being able to generate one dollar through clicking but as you purchase Upgrades this number gains in value. In theory, when you click the level 1 upgrade button it will send a true value to the main game view, making a click earn 5 dollars instead of 1.

import UIKit

class GameViewController: UIViewController {
    var wallet: Int = 0
    var totalIncome: Int = 0
    var level1UpgradeUsed: Bool = false
    @IBOutlet weak var pizzaButton: UIButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var labelWallet: UILabel!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()
        print(level1UpgradeUsed)
        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
    }
    
    
    @IBAction func pizzaClick(_ sender: Any) {
        let upgrades = UpgradesViewController()
        
        let level1UpgradeUsed = upgrades.level1used
        if level1UpgradeUsed == true {
            wallet = wallet + 4
        }
        
        wallet = wallet + 1
        labelWallet.text = ("$" + String(wallet))
    }

In the upgrades controller I'm trying to send the true value once the button is clicked

import UIKit

class UpgradesViewController: UIViewController {

    public var level1used: Bool = false
    public var level2used: Bool = false
    public var level3used: Bool = false
    public var level4used: Bool = false
    var level5used: Bool = false
    @IBOutlet weak var buttonLevel1: UIButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var buttonLevel2: UIButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var buttonLevel3: UIButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var buttonLevel4: UIButton!
    @IBOutlet weak var buttonLevel5: UIButton!
    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        // Do any additional setup after loading the view.
    }
    
    override func prepare(for segue: UIStoryboardSegue, sender: Any?) {
        if let gameViewController = segue.destination as? GameViewController {
            gameViewController.level1UpgradeUsed = self.level1used
        }
    }
    
    @IBAction func Level1Click(_ sender: Any) {
        if level1used == false{
            buttonLevel1.backgroundColor = UIColor.gray
            level1used = true
        }
        else {
            
        }
    }

Im geussing I'm not utilizing the TabBarController to pass data and not sure at all how to go about doing that. I'm new to swift and teaching myself everything so I'm sorry if this seems like a redundant question. It feels like it should be a lot simpler then it looks.