We're Out N About

When getting ready to submit to a travel nursing contract, one thing we always ask to see is the pay package. Although we have a weekly "take home" we shoot for, seeing and understanding the pay package is important. Every pay package layout may look different from company to company, but understanding what it's saying is important. Gross weekly pay is what you make prior to any deductions Net weekly pay (take-home pay) is after taxes ↠ this is what matters to us The most common "pay package" will include an hourly rate (taxable), housing stipend (tax free) and meals/incidental stipend (tax free). As a travel nurse, you can typically manipulate your money. If you want a higher hourly rate, your recruiter can lower your stipends. If you want higher stipends (tax free money), the recruiter can lower your hourly rate. However, there are pros + cons to doing this. Ultimately, you don't want to make less than $18/hr as a nurse or else the IRS...

"Can I RV for less than $30K a year?" The short answer is YES! However, there are so many factors you need to consider first. Many individuals and families are switching to full-timing lifestyles. Some are doing it to add a little adventure to their mundane, white-picket fence lives while others are doing it in search of financial freedom. We did it for both reasons. Personally, our annual expenses are greater than $30,000 annually. In order for us to abide by current tax laws, we are forced to duplicate expenses in our state of permanent residence and also where we travel for work as travel nurses. Someone who is going full-time and is not hindered by duplicating expenses can easily travel for less than $30,000 annually but it ultimately depends on your lifestyle choices. The amount it costs to RV annually will vary drastically from family to family. This is where building a budget  and understanding  your family's monthly expenses really matters. If you are...

The 3 Reasons Why We Chose Travel Nursing Ever since we started dating, we have always loved traveling. Every chance we got, we were planning our schedules to get days off for us to take a trip. We became addicted. The more we traveled, the more we craved travel. Unfortunately, our staff jobs didn’t provide us with the income or the freedom to travel the way we really wanted too. Being ICU nurses, we have been reminded over and over again how precious life is. We found out about travel nursing and knew it was something that would be perfect for us. We had worked for 4 years as staff at our home hospital @ WVU and had gained so much knowledge and so many experiences. Regardless, we had no idea what to expect when we left our cozy jobs to start over. All we knew is we would look back with regret if we didn’t take the chance + we're so glad we did it. Believe us, travel nursing isn't always amazing - check out our previous post on the pros + cons of travel nursing  (click t...

When we first started talking, one thing that really sparked our interest in each other was that we both grew up camping. We quickly discovered that we both camped at the same campground every summer ↠ Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach, SC! We can both agree that after finding out we had this in common, our relationship took off. Fast forward two years and we got married in that same campground on the beach. We always talked about owning our own RV someday and traveling with our own family. We never thought we could be "full-timers" because we owned a house and had permanent jobs as nurses. After starting our career, we learned about travel nursing. You don't have to have any other qualifications to be a travel nurse in comparison to a staff nurse. All you need is experience, confidence, and flexibility. Travel nurses are used to temporarily fill the nursing void while the hospital recruits and trains permanent staff for the job. Once we decided to give t...

Finding the right RV can be challenging. The first step is deciding your readiness to embrace the RV lifestyle. We both grew up RVing since we were children and we cherish those memories spent weekending and vacationing with our families. We had the best memories growing up and we both knew we wanted to keep experiencing it together and continuing the tradition with our own family. After deciding to commit, now is a good time to research all of the different types of RVs that are out there. Some of which include: travel trailers, pop-ups, fifth wheels, motor homes, and vans. Feel free to take a trip to a dealership and walk through all of these options to see what feels right for you.  After researching the options and deciding which option is best for you, it's important to recognize your limitations . For instance, we had a truck and wanted to tow. We had to take into account the max weight our truck could tow and the dry weight of the trailers we were interested ...

"How do you spend all of your time together?" -everyone ever EASY PEASY. We absolutely LOOOOVE being around each other and it doesn't get better  than being married to your best friend. We are truly together 24/7. We work on the same unit, in the same hospital, during the same shift (when we have it our way). We live in a 300 sq ft home where we are always within 30 ft of one another. We run all the errands together. We eat, sleep, breathe - you get it. We truly don't have "alone time" (***by choice). We hate being apart and prevent it every chance we can (I even made Chase repeat BLS a year early so we could go to the same renewals together for the rest of our lives -- no shame). We truly believe that once you find your soulmate, you will want to be together. They become your best friend, your partner in crime, your lover, your  world. We believe that we are better together. Some people think we're crazy, but we just genuinely love be...