One of the aspects of travel nursing that makes budgeting and saving money more complicated, is the time in between contracts. This is especially true if you do what Dan and I have done, which is change contracts and cities every three months. Typically, travel nurses will have the chance to renew their contract and stay in one place for longer, but if you’re moving around frequently it’s especially important to plan for the time in between contracts. Expenses can add up fast when you’re moving and don’t have any income!

keep it brief

Our first tip on how to save money between contracts is to ideally keep your time off brief. This is helpful for a few reasons, but overall it just helps save money so you’re maximizing the number of weeks you’re working in a year. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you are receiving benefits such as health insurance from your travel nurse agency, they’ll have some rules of how long you can take in between contracts before losing coverage. Generally this is around three to four weeks or one month.

Unfortunately, Dan and I haven’t been the best at taking our own advice in this area. We generally have taken at least two or three weeks in between each contract which was tough budget-wise as Dan changed contracts every three months. It was nice to have the time to get from place to place though without having to rush to much. We also made it a point to visit family in between each contract, which looking back was maybe a bit excessive. We enjoyed it though, but this is what ultimately led us to want to start renewing contracts so we could stay in one place for longer.

save for this time

No matter how much time you’re taking in between contracts, it’s a good idea to set some money aside for the time when you won’t have any income. When you start a new contract, you typically won’t get paid until the end of your second week of work. This often goes for all of your training pay and travel reimbursements also. That first pay check will be sizable, but you could end up going a good two to four weeks without pay.

Keep that in mind when building your budget and ideally set aside a fund about the size of a month’s worth of expenses. This will help cover travel costs for moving from contract to contract as well as your first month’s rent and other expenses like food that will come up. Unfortunately, most agencies put a cap on how much they’re willing to contribute/reimburse for travel expenses and it doesn’t always line up with what your expenses will actually be. This is especially true for making a big move like from coast to coast. If you’re just moving one state over for your next contract, you may not have to save up so much or take off much time between contracts. But if you’re making a change like we did from Arizona to North Carolina, you’re going to need more time off and more funds to cover those travel expenses.

track your travel expenses

If you’re making a big road trip like that, there are lots of ways to cut costs. Find out what your agency offers in terms of travel reimbursement to help gage just how frugal you need to be. Sometimes they require you to submit receipts and they definitely aren’t interested in paying for your stay at a five star resort while on the road. Sometimes they offer you a flat rate and you don’t need to track your expenses, though it may be a good idea to anyways. You may be able to report some of those travel expenses on your taxes.

This is an area where you want to advocate for yourself with your agency to get as much covered as possible. Common caps we’ve run into have been around $500 which covers a lot, but when we drove across the country it didn’t cover nearly what we had to pay for lodging, food, and gas. When you’re negotiating your contract (before accepting/signing it) is the time to also negotiate what you’ll receive in travel reimbursement.

saving money on road trips

Once you know what your agency is going to contribute, you can start budgeting out the cost of your road trip. There are plenty of ways to cut costs if your agency isn’t offering enough to cover your expenses. First off, look at all of your options for lodging from hotels to Airbnb. In general, Airbnb isn’t much cheaper than most hotels nowadays, but sometimes you can find a good deal. You can also plan your stops based on where you’re seeing cheaper lodging options.

When it comes to food, it’s so much easier to eat out on road trips, but at least for me, I don’t find I enjoy or appreciate it enough to justify it. You’re so tired at the end of a long day of driving that going out to a restaurant doesn’t sound like that attractive of an idea and you’re just counting down the minutes until you can hop in bed. With that in mind, we’ve started trying to cook more while on long road trips. Simple things like mac & cheese and soup or hot dogs can be quick, easy, and cheap. We also like to pack lots of our favourite snacks to help avoid stopping for snacks so much on the road.

Check out some of our road trip resources for more tips on how to save money on the road!

• Airbnb vs Hotels for the Budget Traveler
• Preparing for a Cross-Country Road Trip
• Preparing for a Cross-Country Road Trip part two
• Road Trip Tips