Cell phones

Depending on what cell carrier you have, it might be time to switch if you’re just starting out as a travel nurse. You want to go for what has the best coverage nationally, not necessarily locally. Otherwise, you may want to plan to accept contracts in places where you know you’ll have decent coverage. I think this is becoming less of an issue as most cell carriers have significant coverage nationally, but it’s still something to keep in mind. If you plan to stay in one place by renewing your contract for up to one year (the limit), it would be difficult to go without good service for that length of time.

Car maintenance

Planning ahead is key as is making sure you have a healthy budget for car repairs that could come up. You will likely be putting on way more miles than you’re used to so keep in mind regular maintenance like oil changes. It’s also helpful to keep a bottle of windshield wiper fluid in the car as well as a car kit with essentials. See our Travel Nursing Tips – Car Edition post.

Residency limitations

I’m still working on the blog post explaining more about car registration rules when travel nursing, but this is some general information on if you don’t have your car registered in the state where you’re travel nursing. Depending on what state you’re in and honestly probably on who you talk to at the town clerk’s office/town hall, you may be limited by not having your car registered in the state where you’re temporarily living.

In South Carolina, our lease was enough to show proof of residency to access town resources and discounts at local gardens, aquariums, etc. In Maine, we were told that unless we registered our car there we could not have access to town resources such as the dump and recycling center. Knowing this ahead of time can be helpful when negotiating your lease. For example with the trash situation, try to negotiate that your landlord take care of the trash if you aren’t able to access the dump. We ended up having to pay for a private trash pick-up service which was an extra monthly expense we weren’t expecting.

Establishing a tax home

We talk about this in our 10 Things We’ve Learned about Travel Nursing video, but it felt worth it to reiterate. Your pay as a travel nurse is split into two categories, your regular hourly pay and a housing/living stipend. Sometimes, you can choose to take housing offered by your agency in exchange for the housing stipend (this is rarely a good deal). If you don’t do that, you are responsible for finding your own housing, but the stiped should nearly always be plenty to cover housing and more. So far for us, the stiped has always worked out to be more than half of Dan’s total pay.

If you establish what is called a tax home (basically a permanent residence) you can qualify to have this stipend be tax free. This means you will only pay taxes on about half of your income AND you will fall into a much lower income bracket meaning the amount of taxes you do pay will be at a lower rate. This is SIGNIFICANT. Do your own research on what qualifies as a tax home, but essentially you need to own or rent a house/apartment/condo/room at fair market value as your permanent residence.

The idea is that you are duplicating your expenses when travel nursing so your second apartment (that you live in when you’re travel nursing away from your permanent residence) is essentially like a commuting expense that can be “reimbursed.” You don’t actually have to send any kind of receipts or proof of the amount of rent you pay, your stipend will be a flat rate as defined within each contract. It is extra work for sure, but financially, it is nine times out of ten worth it (honestly I want to say ten out of ten, but I’m leaving a little room for error).

NOTE: If you are working within 60 minutes or 60 miles of your permanent residence/tax home, you will not qualify to receive the stipend, but you will qualify for a local hourly rate. The 60 minute/mile rule is a general estimate/trend, but check what your agency has to say about this – it can vary by facility as well. The local hourly rate is typically higher than the corresponding travel hourly rate, but it is all taxed. In a way it’s like the stipend just gets factored into your hourly pay, but it’s not necessarily the exact same amount.

If you’re confused, know you’re not alone! So much of this is not clearly stated anywhere particularly reputable-seeming so it’s takes a LOT of research and even then you need to double check along the way.

You will need ALL the scrubs

This probably isn’t a surprise, but it’s something we didn’t really consider much going into travel nursing. Honestly, it’s probably wise to have a scrub budget set up, especially if you plan to bounce around to a new hospital every three months.

So far, every hospital that Dan has worked at has had a different scrub policy. In Myrtle Beach he needed royal blue scrubs which he had none of, then in York he could wear any colour (no problem there), and now in Phoenix he needs navy blue scrubs. He already had one pair of navy blue which was helpful, but we still needed to buy a couple more pairs so we weren’t doing laundry daily. In Myrtle Beach we had a washer and dryer in the apartment so we were able to get by with only buying two pairs of royal blue scrubs, but this time around he wanted to have three to make it easier.

Plan on buying lots of scrubs and plan on calling the hospital ahead of time to ask them what colour scrubs you’ll need. This will allow you to have plenty of time to shop around and look for sales. In our case, we have gone back to NH between each contract so knowing what scrub colour Dan will need ahead of time allows us to only pack what he’ll need, saving us some extra car space.