Signed a 13-week travel contract for $62/hour with housing stipend. Did the math at midnight afte…
T=0: The Decision
Three years in a Level 1 trauma ICU in Nashville. Short-staffed every shift. Mandatory overtime every other weekend. Post-pandemic burnout that nobody in administration was naming yet. I was earning $68k a year while agency nurses on my unit cleared $85/hour.
Signed a 13-week travel contract for $62/hour with housing stipend. Did the math at midnight after a 14-hour shift. Kept the math on my phone for three months before I believed it was real and put in my notice.
Financially stable. Still a nurse. Not completely broken.
6 Months Out
The money is exactly as advertised. Three contracts in, I have saved more in 6 months than in my previous 2 years combined. The units are chaotic everywhere — but it is someone else's institutional chaos, not mine.
“Research the hospital before you sign. Some facilities use travel nurses to cover understaffing on the worst floors. Read the Facebook groups for each market before you commit.”