Six-figure salary. It’s a dream for a lot of people. It certainly was a dream of mine when I set upon my career path.

I grew up in a middle-class family and enjoyed a great childhood. But when my parents separated, the dose of reality hit as I witnessed first-hand how hard my mom had to work to put food on the table so that my brother and I would never be lacking.

At 10 years old, I realized just how much money meant. It didn’t fall from trees. It didn’t come magically through the swipe of a credit card. You had to work hard to earn it. And from then on, I vowed to find a good job that would allow me the financial stability that my parents never had.

I worked hard throughout high school to earn honors, taking as many AP classes as I could. I skipped out on study abroad opportunities in college to ensure I would obtain my double major in four years.

Unlike many of my peers who took a gap year to find themselves after college, I went straight to graduate school with only one thing in mind. That the faster I finished school, the sooner my dream of a six-figure salary would come true.

Fast forward 15 years later, at 25 years old, I became a six-figure earner. I had made it, or so I thought. After I moved back to my hometown, I reconnected with some old friends, catching up on our lives and sharing our struggles, like the good old days.

While I am comfortable disclosing my struggles to some, I knew there were others who would never understand how someone making twice or three times their salary didn’t have it all.

Hence why I want to disclose it all here. One year since I started making a six-figure salary, here are my 5 confessions on what it means to be a 25-year-old making six figures.

1.  I don’t actually make that much

A lot of people look at salary without taking into account the taxes that we pay on it. Or they only look at the hourly rate without really seeing how many hours I’m actually able to work.

Between contract jobs and part-time positions, I barely managed to snag that $100,000 salary title since I started working last year.

But how much of that money did I actually get to see and spend? I took home a measly $63,000 from July 2017-July 2018 of the $100,000 I earned. And I didn’t even start contributing to my 401k until two months ago so almost 40% of my salary purely went to taxes.

On average, I take home ~$5,000/month. And while some may consider that a lot, it certainly is not the $10K/month take-home pay that some people mistakenly assume I get.

Between my $1000 rent, ~$500 grocery expenses, and ~$3,000 I contribute to student loan payments, I don’t actually get to see most of that money. I’m certainly not swimming in a pool of Benjamins as some may believe.

2.  Not much has changed

What a bummer right? I thought my life would change dramatically once I started my high salary profession. Don’t get me wrong. My life has changed. But that change had little to do with my earning.

The biggest adjustment for me came in the form of a full-time job to replace my full-time student status that had been my identity for so long.

But in terms of how my six-figure salary has changed my life? To be honest with you, it really hasn’t. When I was a full-time college student working part-time, making $8.50/hour, I learned to spend within my means.

Now that I make 7 times that amount, for the most part, my lifestyle is still like it was in college (which has a lot to do with confession #4).

I still live at home which I would actually consider a downgrade as I was actually living on my own (with roommates) throughout college and graduate school.

I still drive the same car I’ve had since college. And I still eat out on average once a week as I had mostly done in graduate school.

And in terms of my personal happiness? I would say I am no happier or sadder than I was in graduate school or college. Maybe it’s because I am an overall mellow person. Like most, I have my good days and bad days but overall my happiness scale is very much the same as it was a year ago.

3.  Six-figure salary comes with six-figure responsibility

Six-figure jobs are stressful. With all my friends and acquaintances, I have noticed a pattern. That the higher their income, the higher the stress level of their jobs. And to me, that makes perfect sense.

You get paid for the work you do. The harder (and likely more stressful) the job is, the more money your employer will have to compensate you for it.

I work in the healthcare field and I know that the decisions I make and the work I do will impact a person’s health and well-being. And that is a huge responsibility to take on.

A high-paying friend of mine works in finance as a project manager working on projects worth millions of dollars. As you may expect, she gets very stressed at her job too. We often go to happy-hour just to complain to each other about our work (even when we know nothing about the respective field), if only to have a friend to commiserate in our stress.

All in all, when it comes down to it, a high paying job usually comes with high stress and responsibility. It comes with the territory and I fully accept the responsibility. I do, however, get a little peeved when some of my friends complain about making so little yet boast about taking two-hour lunches and shopping online during work hours.

To that, I can definitely say I work harder to get paid more.

4.  I still live paycheck to paycheck

Albeit by choice. While some people may think that with a six-figure income I am now rich enough to just take weeks off and go on vacation, I am actually still living paycheck to paycheck.

In fact, I’m poorer than most of my friends, even the ones with only $100 in their checking account. See, I actually have negative net worth due to all the student loans I took out.

Since I started working, I have been aggressively trying to pay off my student loans (oh, only about $171,000 of it). So I have been putting almost all the extra money from my paycheck to making extra payments on my loans. It has worked out well. I have officially gone from having six-figure student loans to being a five-figure debtor this month! Here is my debt progress so far.

Oh, and about those vacations, between the layoff and switching jobs this year, I actually don’t even have vacation time yet and haven’t taken a vacation in a year! That is honestly worse than when I was still a broke student because even then, I was actually taking a vacation every break, averaging two vacations a year.

5.  I do get to enjoy life more

While my first four confessions have been less than stellar, mostly debunking myths that making six-figures automatically makes you a baller, I will say that my six-figure salary has afforded me a comfortable life.

What do I mean by that? While I still worry about money issues such as my (no longer!) six-figure student loans, and when I will be able to purchase a home, I also know that I make enough money that if a small emergency such as car maintenance were to happen, I would not have to worry about how I would put food on the table.

While I continue to live frugally, I no longer have to feel guilty about splurging here and there as I would be when I was living off my loans as a grad student.

It’s a small comfort that is often overlooked, but the sense of security of having enough and of being able to say “yes” to eating out, shopping, and spending on entertainment has definitely allowed me to enjoy life a little more.

To My 10-Year-Old Self

I am lucky enough to say that I have never worked a full-time job that didn’t pay me a six-figure income. So I guess you can say that I don’t know any better. But I have worked multiple part-time jobs paying minimum wage ever since I was a college student so I don’t believe that I am so out of touch with the reality of making less.

At the end of the day, if I could speak to my 10-year-old self, I would tell her not to be so focused on the numbers. I would tell her that a six-figure salary would not solve any more problems that you cannot solve making less. That when it comes to happiness, you will be just as happy struggling as a broke student with a few good friends as you would once you finished school and working full-time.

I would tell her to focus on finding her passion so as not to regret her profession. But if there was only one thing I could tell her, it would be not to worry. I am as happy now as I’ve ever been which is as happy as I was one year, five years, and even ten years ago. A six-figure salary changes things, but not everything.