Should I stay or should I go? (several questions)

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My hubby and I are considering the feasibility of travel nursing for us. I have some questions that I'm hoping you can weigh in on to help us with this decision.

1. is 56 too old to start traveling?

2. Are most jobs in urban areas or can you get assignments in rural hospitals?

3. We plan on living in our motorhome. What is average space rent around the western half of the country?

4. Can you get enough assignments to be full time or is it hit and miss?

5. How difficult is it to establish a 'tax home' if you're traveling?

I'd love to hear from anyone, you don't have to answer all the questions, any would do.

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My hubby and I are considering the feasibility of travel nursing for us. I have some questions that I'm hoping you can weigh in on to help us with this decision.

1. is 56 too old to start traveling?

2. Are most jobs in urban areas or can you get assignments in rural hospitals?

3. We plan on living in our motorhome. What is average space rent around the western half of the country?

4. Can you get enough assignments to be full time or is it hit and miss?

5. How difficult is it to establish a 'tax home' if you're traveling?

I'd love to hear from anyone, you don't have to answer all the questions, any would do.

1. I don't think 56 is too old to start traveling!!

2. Jobs just depend. They have both available.

3. I hear that rent space runs about $400 but I can't be sure of that.

4. You will be full time. You take one assignment at a time. Just make sure guaranteed hours are in your contract and you will be guaranteed to work full time.

5. I still pay some rent at my tax home. I am not sure how this would work if you didn't have a home base somewhere.

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1. no

2. yes

3. average? Rural or urban? $300 to $1,200 is the range but usually $800 is tops. Not a way to save money, lifestyle choice.

4. fulltime

5. tax home is something you establish before you start traveling. If you don't have a home other than your RV, you cannot possibly have a tax home, no matter what you read on RV forums.

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Specializes in NP. Former flight, CCU, ED RN and paramedic..

1. No, I see a lot of travelers in that age bracket, all the time.

2. I'm working in a 4 bed ER right now, before that was Level II trauma, plenty of jobs in both big and small.

3. Been living in an RV for a year, average RV rate is $550/month, plus electricity, we save 50% of our take home.

4. More than enough work for full time.

5. Listen to Ned.

We pay $480 a month to live here............But if you take the cost of the motorhome, and divide it by however many months you plan to travel, then add that to your monthly expenses. We paid cash for our RV, but still, if we travel for five years, you have to figure 60 months divided by the cost of the RV to have a realistic monthly expense total, then the depreciation and nominal insurance.

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Thank you for all the answers!!!!

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I can't offer any advice, but the title of this thread just made me sing it as the song "Should I Stay or Should I Go" rather than read it as a title haha.

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LOL, that was what was playing in my mind when I wrote the original post

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Specializes in Psych.

I'm going to specifically address the issue of RV living and tax home. I would recommend going to the TravelTax website and looking at their FAQs (they have a specific RV example) and even calling them for a consult (this is what I did). We are doing the same thing, selling the house and roaming the country in the RV to travel nurse. Here's what they told me.

Wherever you earned your main income prior to traveling is your current tax home. So even if you have a house in Arizona, but work in Nevada, your tax home is Nevada, not Arizona. Here is our situation. We've been living and working in the same area we own a home for over 10 years. We are selling the home. If we return to our tax home each year for at least 30 days, and earn 25% of our yearly income there (paying all taxes on stipends because we are "at home"), we have maintained our tax home for that year. All I need to do is take an 8 -13 week assignment in my tax home each year (and not do anything silly like register my vehicle in another state or start using a friend in Colorado's address for my mail) then I will survive an audit.

I really do recommend contacting TravelTax. They are great, there are soooo many things that are tax deductible that I didn't even know about ....Hello...ATM fees when you are traveling...WOW!!! And there are so many others.

D

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Specializes in NP. Former flight, CCU, ED RN and paramedic..

Don't forget you have to "duplicate expenses" at your tax home. The way I interpret that is a fair value/market value rental, room, etc.

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Specializes in Psych.
Don't forget you have to "duplicate expenses" at your tax home. The way I interpret that is a fair value/market value rental, room, etc.

But you don't have to duplicate expenses for the entire year. That is a big myth apparently. Not necessary to survive an audit. This is why anyone who is traveling really needs to contact an accountant who specializes in travelers. Mine is TravelTax dot com. They are great! You can set up a phone or email consult with them prior to traveling.

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If you sell your home, you no longer have a residence to return to, and thus no tax home is possible. You cannot just return to the general area of your old home, stay in a motel, and meet IRS criteria. I think you are misunderstanding what Joe is telling you.

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Specializes in NP. Former flight, CCU, ED RN and paramedic..

I use TravelTax annually.

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