BC Nurses and Salary (and a brief intro)

[FungManX]

Hi, I'm kind of a new poster here that plans on going into nursing (from Vancouver)!

I'm a real organized keener type guy.. which would probably explain the reason for this post. I'm 18 years old.. second year at UBC in the fall.

I want to transfer into 3rd year nursing at UBC .. but its really competitive and I'm not sure if I can compare with some of the others that apply. Sooo.. as a backup I've waitlisted myself at Langara's school of Nursing.

Anyway, I'm just planning on getting a house by the time I'm 25/26;

If I grad from UBC I'll be 21, but if I grad from Langara I'll be about 23!

I don't really expect to make it into UBC... but there is still a chance because my GPA is still pretty competitive... its just my EC's and Interview skills I have to buffen up..

SO the question is.. how can I make big bucks fast? Going up North and working tonnes of hours (do they pay more up north?.. I know that pharmacists up North start off with a lot of money) ???

Is it even possible to save up that much money in such a short amount of time? (3-4 years) I plan on getting a 400k-500k apartment.. on a pretty high floor (10's) either in coquitlam/bby or vancouver.

Don't get me wrong.. I'm not in on nursing for the money at ALL. I've watched many doctor shows (like ER) since I was a kid and I knew that I HAD to work in the healthcare profession.. And because both my parents had cancer, I got really exposed to the nursing profession since they both had to be hospitalized for a long time when I was still a kid ..

Anyway agian.. the questions!

1) is it possible to save up that much money in such a short amount of time? (even for a downpayment on a 500k aptmt)?

2) Do nurses up north make it big $$?

3) If you can, or don't feel offended by me asking... could you let me know approx how many hours you work (how many years you've been working) and how the annual gross/net salary is like?

sooo... hours/week + salary + years of exp. in job.

thanks a bunch everyone!

[fergus51]

Honestly, I can't imagine that happening. You would need to work yourself to death. Nurses up north generally make about the same wage as nurses everywhere else in the province because the union is province wide and the union contract sets the wages. New grads start around $26 an hour I believe. Some rural posts include a bonus, but that's usually offset by the fact that it's expensive to live there. I mean, even if you only want to put 10% down, that's $50 000. That's more than a new grad would make in a year of regular full time work before taxes (your take home will be less). Saving that in 2 years seems extremely unlikely to me.

If you really want to make a lot of money in a short time I would suggest you spend your first year gaining experience (you can pick up as much OT as you want), then look at doing travel nursing in the US. Those assignments pay a lot, generally offer a lot of money and they pay your rent so you can save a good chunk of change. A friend of mine did that and was putting away more than $2000US a month.