$200,000 salary as a RN, it's true

@ProgressiveThinking, except that when I looked at Austin for job postings in a comparable academic medical center, there isn't even openings for Critical Care NP's like myself and there were maybe 3 NP job postings that have no relation whatsoever with my background...umm, no thanks.

@juan de la cruz That's one of the benefits of California as well. Plenty of jobs to go around. 

I think people are blowing the cost of living in CA WAY out of proportion.

https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx

Says here that a 324k salary in San Antonio Texas would be required to maintain a 350k standard of living in Stockton, CA. I'm not a mathematician, but I think in this particular case, a 1-2K difference in mortgage/rent is more than offset by the higher salaries that CA offers, especially since the cost of goods isn't too different.

34 minutes ago, ProgressiveThinking said:

@juan de la cruz That's one of the benefits of California as well. Plenty of jobs to go around. 

I think people are blowing the cost of living in CA WAY out of proportion.

https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx

Says here that a 324k salary in San Antonio Texas would be required to maintain a 350k standard of living in Stockton, CA. I'm not a mathematician, but I think in this particular case, a 1-2K difference in mortgage/rent is more than offset by the higher salaries that CA offers, especially since the cost of goods isn't too different.

Check your numbers again, I was surprised so I checked them and I got far different results.  A 324k salary in San Antonio would require 415k salary in Stockton to maintain a similar standard of living.  That is why people dislike California so much, it is honestly a beautiful and nice place to live.  But the cost of living there is not worth it to many people as it's quite expensive to live there.  That same 324k in San Antonio would require 537k to maintain that standard of living in San Diego.

https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-calculator.aspx

The ratio balances out.

It's fairly easy to find salaries for nurses working for state hospitals.

A Staff Nurse III at UT Health Austin makes between 60-80K a year

A Clinical Nurse II at UC San Francisco Health makes 145-180K a year

Per that Bankrate site, 180K a year in SF is equal to 99K a year in Austin.

https://salaries.texastribune.org/university-of-texas-at-austin/

https://hr.ucsf.edu/hr.php?function=tpp&subfunction=search

Yeah, San Diego is a different animal. I would LOVE to live there, but everybody wants to live there so salaries are low and cost of living is high. You're correct in that I misspoke about the comparison. 350k in Stockton = 273k in San Antonio.

Lets compare numbers apples to apples.

San Antonio:

Average San Antonio Staff RN salary = 60-85k depending on the website you use. Let's say 90k to make it easy while being generous.

Per Paycheck city.com, that gives you a biweekly net pay of 2625 or a monthly net of $5250.

Median home listing price is 243k. Per redfin that leaves you with a mortgage of $1659/month.

This leaves you with $3591 a month after your mortgage payment.

 

Stockton/Sacramento, CA:

Average RN salary = 100-130k (keep in mind A LOT of nurses in the area are easily pulling 200k+), but ill use 130k to compare apples to apples.

Biweekly take home = $3507 biweekly or $7014 monthly.

The median home listing in Stockton, CA is 316k. Per Redfin, this leaves you with a mortgage of ~1656 a monthy, assuming you put 20% down (property taxes are lower assuming you don't have a mello-roos).

This leaves you with $5358  a month after your mortgage payment with a similar cost of goods.

To the OPs buddy who makes 350k, he takes home 8302 biweekly or 16604 a month

16604 - 1656 = $14948  month. He wins the contest.

Also, in California you have nurse to patient ratios along with better working conditions. As a bedside nurse, I felt like I had safe working conditions and was generally respected since a lot of people in California want to become a nurse because of its high pay. Had I not gone to anesthesia school, and stayed a bedside nurse, I would hands down stay in California.

Edited Jul 29 by ProgressiveThinking

One key thing you both are leaving out are taxes.

Nope. My numbers include taxes using the paycheck city website.

1 hour ago, ProgressiveThinking said:

Nope. My numbers include taxes using the paycheck city website.

Thank you for breaking down the numbers like that, it was easy to understand and really surprised me once broken down as such.  Perhaps I should look into that more thoroughly at a later date, but at minimum it gave me something to think about.  One thing I do think might bite you would be federal taxes.  CA income tax is 1-13% and I assume income over 100k like that would incur taxes near the higher end of that spectrum, same with federal taxes.  Especially as Texas does not have a state income tax at all so that may make a difference.  Even so, I'm surprised by the breakdown of the numbers.  I'm not sure about others, but personally if someone comes at me with an opinion I ignore them.  If someone comes at me as you did with a breakdown of the numbers I listen as the opinion would be backed up by data with references even.  I like that.

The taxes are retarded in California and continue to go up.  Current policies are to keep releasing violent felons out on to the streets.  There are parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco that look like third world countries with needles and feces all over the ground.  Yes, RN's are paid well here, average making 120-130k without OT....but California has it's share of problems.

 

Even so I would consider being a travel RN to California with that in mind.  Texas has a low cost of living so if I were a travel RN to California I would get the benefits of both states; TX low cost of living with CA high salary.  I'll bet many travel RN's do that exact thing for that similar reasons.

I was playing around with that website. It says for LA I would need to make at least $103k (which it sounds like would be no problem) and for SF I would need 130k. 

The thing about travel nurses is that in NorCal, they are paid less than regular staff which is not typical in other states. They are not part of the union, hence are not subject to cancellation protections. That said, they have a stipend and traveling is a good way to try out the area and get hired if they decide to stay.