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Thank you for looking out for us. I just want to update you that I have about 2.5 months left of nursing school, and while the supervisor on my favorite unit down here in SW Florida has guaranteed me a job as soon as I'm done (and they really want me badly and have very clearly let me know), I've been doing the math. And the math isn't pretty for nurses in SW Florida. The salaries have not risen much in the past 2 years, but the cost of living, especially rent, has skyrocketed lately. So I would start at about $28-29 an hour (with my BSN being my 2nd bachelor's degree), being bilingual, being a leader in my nursing program, etc. My take home pay every 2 weeks working 36 hours per week would be approximately $1650 net, which is what one month's rent is on a 1-bedroom apartment in the area, without even adding in electricity, water, internet, cable, etc. So you're spending over 50% of your take home for your rent and rent associated costs, and then you need to pay for everything else (food, gas, phone, insurance, car payment, schools loans, etc.). And guess what? There's not enough money with the other $1650 for that month to cover it all. You want furniture? You want to buy your mother a birthday present? Ha! You are forced to share an apartment as a new nurse if you want to survive financially. Working 12 hour days looking after people's lives, on your feet with barely a break, and being mentally ON the entire time, not to mention risking your health with each patient.... and you have to share an apartment or get a 2nd job. FML, a 2nd job, after all this school and all this stress. That is NOT, at ALL, dignified. There's no money left over to save, nothing left to eat dinner out one night, nothing left to even buy uniforms. The math makes being here something I can't in good conscience agree to, no matter how much they love me and want me to work there. In California, despite every hospital there being completely unknown to me, I wouldn't be faced with that undignified situation. I would have money left over, I would have the opportunity to save and look forward to home ownership, and I wouldn't have to go get a 2nd job just to not be broke. I didn't sign up for nursing to be on the struggle bus like I was previous to starting nursing school.
@@redcapote4760 Damn, every reason you state for wanting to leave Florida, are the same reasons why we left NYC, and then some. We were being overworked in NYC, making less than half of what we make here in California, with a higher cost of living-it made no damn sense! If other states paid like California, and had all these wonderful overtime laws and employee benefits, we would have never left NYC! No thanks! I would do the same thing you're planning to do. Bye, Florida!
I think mortgage cost is unrealistic for those nurses coming to California (like myself) in the near future. I think the middle ground between a 1 bedroom apartment and a 2 bedroom apartment in these same cities would be a phenomenal way to gauge living expenses for those of us planning to rent for a good while. I might perhaps never buy in California, but simply save heavily for retirement. I would absolutely buy that spreadsheet that showed both the mortgage cost AND the 1.5 bedroom apt cost. Because while Sunnyvale may be ridiculous to own in, you might be able to make a ton of money there if you're willing to live in a small apartment and perhaps even share it. Thanks, Jason!
This video took a long time to make. Great job. Of my 2.5 years spent Travel Nursing in California all 5 locations rank in video, San Luis Obispo, Bakersfield, Stockton, Ontario and Oxnard. I really enjoyed my time and always recommend California to nurses looking to do Travel Nursing. It's such a beautiful state. The high taxes and home prices scared me away. Enjoying just traveling now. Not sure where I'll end up but it's good to get the numbers from California.
Please, could you tell me how you felt about Oxnard? I have a job offer in the works there and I'm curious what I might expect in terms of cost of living and starting pay for a staff nurse there at St John's Regional. Thank you so much.
Hey I am moving to California because of you. Thank you. I am from Canada and I wanted to move to Texas at first but you changed my mind. I will start applying for licence in Cali tomorrow. Thanks again. God bless you.
This is golden! Just what I needed too as I'm researching for & planning my move to CA! I appreciate your hard work on providing us with this information! ☺️
That is my goal. Thanks! I have a lot of nurses at work that support our intentions with this channel, but you wouldn't believe there's actually some that have gone to our union and told them that our videos are an impediment to them negotiating a better contract because they say these videos will give hospital administrators the impression that we have it too good and don't deserve better pay or benefits.
@@NursesToRiches Wow! That’s sad, so do they think they will get more money , by talking? Maybe you can do a video on how to move in silence when you know the truth! 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you so much for all this information. I graduate from Nursing School in May. I’m a new nurse that’s worked only as a CNA so this information is detrimental for me.
Moving to California soon and all the information in this video has been so helpful. I know that this took a lot of time and effort, so thank you sir this is much appreciated! :)
Thank you! I appreciate all the effort. Just wanted to add something. Santa Maria and Santa Barbara shouldn't be put together in the first statictics - we have $10 per hour difference here in Santa Maria and Santa Barbara. Which is about $1000 per month. Santa Barbara also definitely has more affordable prices. Yes we have huge mansions for $100000000 but also houses starting from $700.000. So it looks expensive when you see the mean. Also most people live in Goleta which is a 10 min drive but prices much lower. Thanks !
Hi, thanks for the comment! The reason I left the first chart as is is because the Bureau of Labor and Statistics aggregates nearby cities into one group and sums up the average or median salaries from all those locations. If I want to be as objective as possible, the only thing I can do is separate them when it comes to the median home prices because those are numbers that I can collect for every city individually. Also, the home prices you see are not the averages (or mean), they are the median home prices. Numbers will always vary based on what perspective you look at them from but I tried to keep it as consistent as possible for every city, in order to make it an apples to apples comparison. Oh, and with regards to most people living in other cities, I get that most people do that. But my intention with the video is to see which city would be most beneficial to work AND live in, not just work in OR live in. But i do get your point.
I was a RN at Travis AFB near Fairfield back in 05-09. The home I rented foreclosed in 2007 when the housing market crashed. Some days wish I had bought it (they had bought it for 475 but bet it was work less than $300k at the time). Would be making bank with a tiny mortgage and a big paycheck!
Wow this was very detailed once you pulled out the excel spreadsheet i already knew there would be enough information to answer all questions we have definitely appreciative of this channel 😊
As someone who has lived "near" Vallejo for most of my life, I could tell you that its a horrible, crime ridden and terrible place to live. There is a reason it's so cheap. Vallejo is a living hell hole!! (sorry for anyone who lives there.) Corcoran is in the middle of no where. I should also add there are lots of homes in Santa Barbra much less expensive than the "median" home price. If you're a nurse, you can make it work in any California city. All nurses already know how to hustle hard. (or you would have never made it through nursing school). You can figure it out. Great video.. I love the concept here :)
You are absolutely right. Just because these places have a statistically lower cost of living, or the crime rate is low on FBI's index scale, does not mean they are desirable places to live in.
I appreciate all the information you provide for us wanting to be future nurses. I am actually doing a presentation on Nursing for my class. I am using a small portion of your video so I can influence others to go into nursing. Thanks again!
Thank you for the constant great information you put out. I plan to take a page from your playbook for later this year.I plan to work in San Diego for the high pay and live in Tijuana for the super low cost of living and I have family that live there as well. Plus, I have duel-citizenship.And, I have Sentri card which allows a quick crossing of the border. Thanks for providing these videos, or else I wouldn’t have ever thought of it. (And lots of Americans live in Tijuana too.)
Damn, that sounds like the best of both worlds! Great salary, excellent working conditions, and then being able to go home to a place that has a lower cost of living than any place in the US! Good job dude!
Interesting and thoughtful presentation. I didn’t see Santa Cruz in the grid but cost of living is lower here and with a 45min commute an RN can take home a decent volume when employed in Santa Clara.
I'm liking that Bakersfield wage! Would be nice to have that Sacramento wage, but I have a nice house with an even nicer mortgage of $1286! Can't beat that. Can't wait to become a nurse! Thanks for the content!
@@NursesToRiches I'm hoping! I got my house at the end of 2019, months before COVID-19 took over and messed everything up. When I become a nurse, the plan is to attack my principal and my solar. I wanna pay those off asap, and be debt free!
Many of us got lucky and bought our houses at the right time. We have earned $300k in equity on our house since we bought it in 2018. Your plan to be debt free is exactly what we live for. The thought of being in debt for the rest of our lives just gives me chills up my spine.
Your videos have definitely given me lots of food for thought. I would love to return to the Bay Area (or even try Sacramento!) to work as a nurse. But since these hospitals don't have too many opportunities to switch specialties, I may have to do a fellowship in a state outside of CA and then try to enter something like UC Davis or Kaiser as an ICU RN. That way I'll have the more marketable skills to get the overtime for run pay!
I agree that if you want to get intimate a specialty, you're better off getting that experience out of state first since it's nearly impossible to move into a new specialty out here because many hospitals aren't willing to pay for the training that is required.
If there are many rich people in the city, the home prices which you have used to calculate might be higher than the price of where you would live in the city as a nurse. it would be more accurate using the data of home prices under the same conditions- like same sqft, the same number of rooms, etc - in each cities than using the average price of the middle price tier of homes in each cities. Anyway thank you for your work:)
There are so many ways to interpret the data and you are right, if there are many rich people living in a particular city, it will skew the results. I could make a new video in the future comparing the cities by the same purchase price, square footage, number of rooms, bathrooms, etc, and see where that gets us. However, that video would take me ages to create, so we'll see. Lol
Hey there ! I’m a future California nurse I was wondering if you could do a video on the hospitals with pensions? Not 401k and if you knew anything about how hospital pensions work? I am a firefighter who has a pension so I was wondering what the differences were, thank you for all your videos! You’ve inspired me to get a job at Stanford !
I could discuss pensions for each of the hospitals I've talked about so far one the channel, but the reason why I haven't done so yet is because the only pensions that are guaranteed by the government are pensions for public employees. This is why I would never rely on a pension a s a vehicle for income in retirement. Most of them also require that you work for at least 20 years with the organization and retire after the age of 55 to even qualify for payments. We'll see, though, maybe I will make a video about it.
@@phijahohensee7087 100%. You have more control over your 401k, and if you ever needed to use it for an emergency (not that you should ever do so, but you could), you have option of withdrawing your money from a 401. Your 401k can also be rolled over from one job to the next, a pension does not have those benefits. And many employers match a portion of what you contribute to your 401k, helping your money compound even faster.
Thank you so much for explaining!! Is there a certain hospital in NorCal that offers the best 401k input or match? I think I saw like Stanford would contribute up to 8%
Thank you. Unfortunately, I have to do the research, create the charts/graphs, film, edit, post, and promote these videos myself. If i could find someone to help me I'd probably be posting more frequently, but it's hard finding someone who can put as much effort into it as I'm willing to put into it.
When you're a nurse and analyst at the same time. Yup we exist. I've been a procurement accounting analyst at Citibank before I return to being a nurse. Lots of excel spreadsheets 😂
What about Anaheim (aka "Home of The Happiest Place on Earth")? It's not the best in the OC but definitely better than LA and Long Beach in terms of crime and home prices.
@@NursesToRiches so after crunching the numbers im taking home about 100k after housing costs in southern Washington. I was considering moving back to cali but the numbers just don't compare Haha!
@@NursesToRiches I'm a cath lab nurse at $50/hr. I work anywhere from 40-60hr a week depending on call back and we have a program that if you get called in after 2100 you get 1.5x pay the whole next day. With my rentals for August i net $15.3k.
This is a very helpful content. OR nurse here in Canada, planning to move in Cali but don't know where to start or which city. Our concern is the health care as we have universal care here in Canada. Wondering if it is worth it to give it up? This is the only thing that is holding us back. We are a family of 4, my husband is an IT.
If you are a nurse here in the states, most hospitals will have health insurance plans that come with the job. If you get a job in the Kaiser Permanente Hospital System, you will get health insurance that is included in the fee you pay to be represented by the union that negotiates for your benefits. The fee is only about $70 every two weeks and it covers you and your entire family at no additional cost.
Hey Jason! Thank you so much for this awesome video - so informative! Quick question - what is the job market for new graduate nurses in Sacramento right now? Is it competitive? Is it difficult to get a job being an out of state new grad? thanks!!!
California has the highest demand and biggest shortage of nurses. So, if you take that into consideration, as a new grad looking for work, you'd have better options here than all other states. Most new grads I know of in the Sacramento area have found work in less than 3 months. It takes the average new grad about 6 months to get their first job. So don't be disappointed when it takes longer than a few months to receive a job offer.
@@NursesToRiches That's great news to hear, thank you! As an out of state student nurse without a CA license (I graduate in August) when do you suggest starting to apply for jobs? Faculty in my program are suggesting to start now?
You cannot get a job in almost any hospital in California without your nursing license. So, I would say just wait until you're licensed, but you can go ahead and try to look for hospitals that accept your application without a license number-it never hurts to try.
Hey man, another great video! I’m looking for some advice if you have some time. I’ll be graduating with my BSN in December here in Connecticut. My girlfriend has family in the socal area and we would like to move out there. Would you suggest getting a year of experience here in CT or would it be more beneficial to start my career out there?
If I were you I would go wherever my desires lead me. If your desire is to move to SoCal, then that is where you should apply. But, if you're willing to stay an extra year in Connecticut, then go ahead and do that. Or, you could just get your license in both states and apply for jobs in both of the states, then stay in the one that offers you a job first.
I think with CT experience you can find a hospital job in SoCal. My friend who started in SoCal as a fresh grad struggled to find a hospital job even with covid. So she had to start out in nursing home.
The statistics show that more than 98.5% of new grads are its to find employment in less than 12 months in California, and 63% find work in less than 6 months. Many new grads have unrealistic expectations and believe they should be able to find work within a few weeks of graduating. The reality of the matter is that the majority take months, and not getting a job right away should not make anyone feel discouraged. Accepting a nursing job at any place that accepts you, instead of waiting for that one hospital you've always wanted to work in, is the fastest way to accelerate your nursing career. So, keep that in mind when applying to jobs in any state. And, another thing you should keep in mind is that California is the state with the largest shortage and highest demand for nurses. So, if you're not getting any job offers, keep at it, the state of California needs you.
Appreciate all your efforts man. I DM you on your IG. Anyway, despite of the TOP 5 states to move, how come you still chose to move in Sacramento over those top 5? Im here in Houston TX, choosing to move to Sacramento or Las Vegas. Hope you can make a video on Top 5 cities 😇
We chose Sacramento because it was close enough to many popular locations (Lake Tahoe, Napa Valley, The Bay Area) without having a really high cost of living and having nearly the same wages as The Bay Area. Don't get me wrong though, we still miss NYC every single day but we're still able to do more with out money here than we would have ever been able to do whole working and living in NYC.
Thank you for providing detailed infos. From the net income to the cost of living. I am currently living in Canada which offers free healthcare. Can you also share health insurances? Is there any insurance that pays you if you become ill, hospitalized, or disabled?
Hi! It depends on the hospital but if you work for a hospital with a union (like Kaiser) you lot have to pay union dues every paycheck (which is about $70 every 2 weeks for Kaiser) and you get health and dental insurance coverage, pension benefits, holiday pay, paid time off, paid sick leave, and more. All of that is provided to you by just being a union member and paying your union dues. Some hospitals that don't have unions or have a different type of union contract still provide better health insurance than most other private sector employers. When you work as a nurse you *usually* have health insurance coverage at a very low cost, relative to the rest of the population.
@@NursesToRiches thank you so much for your response. I appreciate it. I am actually planning to move to the US but kinda hesitant because of the health insurance.
@@NursesToRiches can you make a content about insurances? What if some emergencies or accidents happened, what is the best insurance to have? Thank you ☺️
13:45 Awesome content!🎉 I wonder how much would the numbers change if you didn’t have a mortgage and you owned your home free & clear? My money is on Santa Carla. Thank you!❤
We chose Sacramento because it's in between the Bay Area and Lake Tahoe. This way we can travel to the Bay area when we want we get nostalgic and start missing NYC. And, in the winter, we can go snowboarding in Lake Tahoe, or swimming in the summer.
🙇 thank you very much and you did the great video, really I appreciate your efforts, continue your great man, God bless you and your family 👪 y@@NursesToRiches
my question is can i move to californa as a nurse, but how would the mortgage company take into consideration how much I am making before I even start my nursing job? Don't they ask you how much you make and how long you have been at your job in order to get approved a mortgage? I already own a house in FL and would sell it and then put the money towards the new house in California.
Hey Jason, have you read the NPR newsletter piece on travel nurses and how they are getting paid a lot more than local nurses? Not sure if you made a video on that topic yet but just wondering what your thoughts on that are
Hi Jason ,Thank you for the information. I'm a registered nurse in South Africa looking to move to the USA in 2024, and your videos have been helpful. Kindly assist or recommend for me an agency for direct hire in California hospitals ,preferably in cities with less crime rate and better salary. Please note that I don't wanna work for an agency but for the hospital. Thank you in advance
The worst city is Stanford ca according to my research the median home price is over 3 million dollars. But I will say not everyone is planning on buying a house in California.
I only included places that are listed as cities in with the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, that's why Stanford is not on the list-there is no objective data about salaries in Stanford, CA. However, if you're referring to Stanford Hospital, then it is one of the highest-paying hospitals in California, but also not the highest. That title goes to El Camino hospital. But either way I cannot include either of those in this video because they are not cities. With regards to not everyone wanting to buy a house, I understand that. However, I make these videos from a place that the majority of Nurses view it. And the majority would definitely like to own real estate (whether as a primary residence or a rental property).
That specific West Valley/Pennisula region of the Bay Area, RJ, is easily the least affordable in terms of real estate in the whole CONTUS for 99.99% of Americans. Lol
CNAs can get their IV certification but it's going to cost $1000+ for the course. In some cases your employer might pay for the course. I don't know which ones you can sign up for but you should easily be able look it up on Google by typing "IV certification in [the city you live in]".
I know 🙁. We we're considering Carlsbad when we first thought about moving to California but then realized we would be relatively poor compared to how we would be living in Northern California. I have a friend (she's a nurse) who moved to San Diego a few months ago from Roseville. She just moved back to Roseville because her cost of living was too high and her pay was too low in San Diego.
I am an RN here in Fl. I am considering moving to Sacramento. My fear is the cost of living. I don't know if I will be making a correct decision. I am burned out with nurse pt ratio here.
Watch my videos. Everything you hear about cost of living does not apply to nurses making $200k+/yr. We are living very comfortably out here. Would you rather be making $200k gross, $133k net in California with a mortgage of $4k/mo, leaving you with $7,100 per month to spend on other things; or, would you rather live in Florida, making $100k gross, $77k net, with a mortgage of $2600, leaving you with $3,800 per month to spend on those other things?
@@NursesToRiches pay rate here is low. I am making 80k/yr. Mortgage is 1300. It's insane here. 1:6 nurse pt ratio plus charging. My target to move will probably next year. I'm trying to watch your videos. Part of me is still hesitant to move since people are saying that I cannot save there d/t federal+state tax+city/county tax?
Thank you Nurses To Rich for the video. Pls I have been battling with which state in USA to work and live as a Nurse with a family, an trying check for nurses salary, crime rate, tax, cost of living, children sch, and at the end take home pay. Pls your suggestion before I BON IN USA for my cgfns
I would say it's similar to most other hospitals in California. It can take anywhere from a few weeks to months to get a job there depending on which department you're applying to and what kind of experience you have.
If you go to Sacramento right now, all you see is homeless people all over the place. Its actually one of the worst place to live. Deadly shooting constantly. Downtown businesses boarded up looking like a third world country.
💯 Things have changed drastically in Sacramento since we moved here. I still be driving around, and recording a video while I do so, to highlight the increasing issue of homelessness in this area. It's awful and we're hoping to move back to NY in 3 years.
If you manage to survive living in the Bay Area.. Anywhere in the Bay Area "close to the Bay" then that means you've done well for yourself. If you're having to commute to work from the Central Valley to the Bay Area. You've TRULY fucked yourself in your LIFE DECISION. Best approach.. Find Work that's only 10 minutes to 30 minutes away. While working for a HUGE HEALTHCARE Corporation.
hey Jason! I understand not preferring Vallejo(#1) because of the crime rate, but Corcoran(#2) seems to be finer than Sacramento(#3) in both crime rates and net income amount. Despite this, why did you choose Sacramento?
The main hiring facility for nurses in corcoran is a prison. There's also absolutely nothing to do anywhere near that city. Sacramento is in the middle of San Francisco, Napa, and Lake Tahoe. The i5 and the i80 run through Sacramento. And there's an international airport in Sacramento.
Corcoran is an actually a small town/city in the Central Valley. It’s the prison nurses that make so much money they take home pay has much more purchasing power.
Hi! I graduate in two weeks, and I was able to thankfully stumble across your account. Definitely deserved a like. Would you by chance be able to connect with me? I have a couple questions, we both come from a similar background. I truly appreciate the content you're putting out!
I have worked in sub acute as LVN, passed recently the RN board but afraid to apply in acute care setting, do they train enough? Thank you anyone for the advise.
I recently interviewed a nurse with a 3 million dollar net worth that left Rancho Cordova because he said him and his family no longer felt safe living there. Take that as you may.
Worst problem with states like NJ, NJ, CT or CA is politics, crazy blue communists and socialists. All democratic states equal high an low quality live, opposite republican states - no income tax.
That is true. The numbers change every year. Here are the 10 Most Dangerous Cities in the US in 2021 Detroit, MI Memphis, TN Birmingham, AL Baltimore, MD St. Louis, MO Kansas City, MO Cleveland, OH Little Rock, AR Milwaukee, WI Stockton, CA
