Is going the NP route my only option to make more money?

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Hello everyone! I am looking for some insight and career advice. 
 

so here's my situation, I live in a very small rural town in the Midwest. My husbands job is regional to here and all of our family is also near. We built our house on his families land. We have a 2 year old son. Moving is not an option do us with my husbands job, having built our house on family land, and relying on family for childcare. 
 

I have been a psychiatric nurse for 6 years now and work at the one and only healthcare facility near us. I make $30/hr after all differentials which evens out to just over 56k a year. While my husband makes okay money for the area, my salary isn't enough to max out my retirement accounts and travel the way I won't I be able to. I want to start making more money to secure my future as an individual and to ensure in case my husband where to die young, we got divorced etc, I want to be sure long term I as well as my son would be secure financially. Unfortunately nursing does not give me that option in my location 

travel nursing is not an option for me with a young child and I don't want to leave him for extended periods of time. Local travel is not a thing anywhere close to me for that to be a feasible option. The hospital I currently work at is the only job option available for nurses in my area. Outpatient clinics and things of that nature are not a thing here. Overtime is only an extra $3/hr. I've applied for remote nursing jobs for over 2 years now and have never gotten a call back 
 

it seems like my only option to make over the 80k in my area is to be a NP, specifically a psychiatric nurse practitioner. If I went this route, I would have to commute to the city, about 1.5 hours away until I got enough experience to WFH or do telehealth. PMHNPs in the city start off at about 130k. I only several nurses who have done this and now do telehealth from home and make >150k. It seems like this is my only option to be able to make significantly more money given my location and circumstances. Any insight? 

 

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