Housing Stipends and per diem rate offers???

Specialties Travel

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I am a pediatric med surg/ rehab nurse who is considering traveling in the next 6 months. I have read through alot of the threads here but would like more info on housing offers made by certain companies and the cities you took the offers in. For example; Houston: 2000 for housing and 35 dollars per diem .RnNetwork....or if you didn't take the stipend what was your offer? This will give me an idea or where to start looking....Thanks for any responses

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Using the calculator on PanTravelers is a really good way to compare offers. If they are in different geographical areas and you want to maximize your bankable pay by taking the housing stipend and finding your own housing, a quick check on Craigslist for your desired type of housing will get you in the right ballpark. Subtract that from the PanTravelers figures (total compensation per hour, or weekly gross pay, or take home weekly) will allow you to see which offer will pay more in the real world. Sometimes high pay, say in San Francisco with the extreme housing costs, will not net you as much as a decent paying assignment in the midwest with very low housing costs.

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I was asking what others are being offered....

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Thanks for directing me to pantravelers!!

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What others are being offered for without the context of their full compensation details is fairly meaningless. What you can count on as a traveler is a bell curve total compensation of between $40 to $50 an hour. Reverse engineer that into PanTravelers calculator and see what that means for net pay with x housing stipend. It is possible with many agencies to negotiate housing versus hourly pay so all you are doing is juggling compensation items. A rule of thumb is that few agencies will go above $3,000 a month for housing (that is allowed by the IRS almost anywhere and much higher in some cities or counties), or around $4,000 with per diems (M&IE) thrown in, but many agencies will not go that high (their tax guy wants them to be more conservative for their own IRS risks). Some travelers will shop for agencies by amount allowed for non-taxable compensation which perhaps you are trying to do.

Be aware that if you do not maintain a tax home for business travel purposes, the housing stipend (or provided housing) is taxed fully. Thus it will make no difference if you try to max out your housing stipend, your taxes and net pay will be exactly the same.

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