Making 100k salary/ income as a nurse?

I am interested in what specialties are making 100k. I have 3 daughters in nursing school and can advise them on a lot, but not necessarily give them a big pic of the financial opportunities from across the nation. I am a 25 year RN and have a 65k salary, but double it most years with ot. not much fun working 68-72 hour weeks though. please tell me your specialty, experience , salary, and salary with diff and ot. oh, and where you r in the USA thank you all and hope your practice is professionally and financially rewarding

One nurse i worked with in a moderate cost of living area worked as a night "weekender" in a hospital. She picked up a lot of extra night shifts....overtime adds up. She has been in six figure fange past few years but little life outside of work. Best bet is to find what you love. As corny and cliche as it sounds The money will come and the joy matters so much.

I may not make any friends with this but when did nursing become a career based on $$$ instead of a calling. I am lucky to have 2 pretty good careers and neither were started based on the amount of money I was going to sock away. The first was Law Enforcement which I certainly didn't choose to get rich. After coming out of the military during Vietnam I started at 369.00 a month. I waited for my 21st birthday to become a cop. I made around 40,000. Of course with raises and OT I was comfortable. Having worked in ESB. When I hit 41 my time was in and chose to become a nurse. I wasn't making a million dollars but working my butt off. I was divorced with 3 girls and paying child support I could make a round 90,000.. Ive been around nurses all of my adult life. I've seen the attitudes change. Most of the time I wasn't impressed. I fell out of bed and broke my face. I spent 5 days in the hospital and the care was superb. These weren't 5 or 10 year nurses they were at the bottom rung.

Maybe Im just an old guy who is stuck in the stoneage (I was a Hospice Nurse) and now my oldest daughter started like the old days. 2 years in med-surg, 2 years in a specialty, now she's in Hospice working on her FNP. She will make her money but she had to work her butt off.

My question is when did nursing stop being a calling?

Specializes in ICU.
I am interested in what specialties are making 100k. I have 3 daughters in nursing school and can advise them on a lot, but not necessarily give them a big pic of the financial opportunities from across the nation. I am a 25 year RN and have a 65k salary, but double it most years with ot. not much fun working 68-72 hour weeks though. please tell me your specialty, experience , salary, and salary with diff and ot. oh, and where you r in the USA thank you all and hope your practice is professionally and financially rewarding

So you're 25 with 3 daughters in nursing school? I find that hard to believe.

I know plenty of 100k jobs. One is California prison.

Probably best to change their career if they won't work in a prison. I would advise them to work in a field dominated by men not women.

Nurse anesthesis

So you're 25 with 3 daughters in nursing school? I find that hard to believe.

The OP said a 25 year RN, not a 25 year old RN. Big difference.

Specializes in ER.
So you're 25 with 3 daughters in nursing school? I find that hard to believe.

I know plenty of 100k jobs. One is California prison.

Probably best to change their career if they won't work in a prison. I would advise them to work in a field dominated by men not women.

I think he meant 25 year experienced RN, that would clinically correlate the most in this situation... but it is possible that he enrolled 1 yr old, 2 yr old, and 3 yr old daughters to online program at some college with 3 letter acronyms... They would respectively be around 5-7 of age when they become RNs, this is compliant to Bond of Nungthing in all 50 states including Somalia.

My question is when did nursing stop being a calling?

I'm not so sure it ever was for most people. No doubt the powers that be would love to keep beating the drum that nursing is a calling, hoping to dampen the expectation of reasonable compensation with some kind of insinuation that asking for good wages is somehow greedy or immoral.

Nurses have families and financial obligations just like people in any other career. They educate themselves, make efforts to stay current, and often obtain higher degrees in order to advance. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with choosing a career based on the desire to succeed financially. Nurses don't break laws in order to make their money, they don't displace other workers to make money, they pay taxes and other withholding costs, make personal sacrifices on holidays and weekends, work nights in contradiction to their bodies' natural rhythms, etc. Expecting decent pay for these sacrifices is not unreasonable. Working for peanuts in order to follow a "calling" is largely an artificial construct inflicted upon the profession by people who have a vested interest in seeing their own pocketbooks swell at the expense of the employees doing the hard work in the field.

Specializes in Government.

I am a salaried RN case manager and I make 100K a year. However I have 30 years of experience. I live in the Midwest in a modest cost region.

Bottomed out said:
So you're 25 with 3 daughters in nursing school? I find that hard to believe.

I know plenty of 100k jobs. One is California prison.

Probably best to change their career if they won't work in a prison. I would advise them to work in a field dominated by men not women.

Ha ha ha!! Reading is fundamental!

I work at night in an ICU, and I know new grads aren't hired into our unit. Like anything they have to be willing to put TIME into their career, getting EXPERIENCE that translates into higher pay eventually. Not many new grad RNs are going to make 100k straight out of nursing school. Most specialties require a minimum of BSN. I have worked 20 years as a BSN but I work part-time. Working full time and picking up extra shifts while working per dem somewhere else might get someone with my experience the 100k.

You have twenty-five years of experience and only make 65k/base? Where on Earth do you live?

I have been a nurse for over 40 years. Been in ICU for 35+ years. Have had my critical care certification for 35 years. Never have I seen a salary of $100K. That is even with working mostly nights and my share of weekends plus overtime. And here chew on this.....Made $4.00/hr as a new nurse back in the 70's. Oh and I live in Colorado , high cost of living.

Specializes in Emergency, Critical Care, Pre-Hospital,.

If you are looking for $100k anywhere but CA you want to give some thought to APRN. CRNAs starts way above this level and NPs are close w/o OT. Other than that, go to a metro area union hospital. Cost of living will be higher though.

I have made >$100k the last few years as an ED RN & Flight RN with LOTS of OT!

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