Our Move Back to NYC Is On Hold: Here’s What Happened

Monica and I had our move back to New York all mapped out. Now it is on hold.

The plan was to list the house in May, get our son into a school in NYC, start apartment hunting in June and move by August. We told our family. We started sorting through our stuff. In our heads, we had already left California.

Then life threw us a few curveballs. Here is what changed and what we are doing now.

These numbers are from April 2026, when this was first written. Pay changes every year, so check current rates in Map My Pay.

The school problem

Our son got waitlisted at every gifted and talented school we applied to in NYC.

Most people don’t know this, but the G&T process in NYC has changed. About 15 years ago, our daughter got into a city-wide gifted program. Back then, kids earned spots with test scores, and merit mattered.

Now it’s a lottery. Tens of thousands of parents apply for a handful of kindergarten seats. We ended up deep on waitlists at schools with only two kindergarten classes of 25 kids each. I’m talking #644 on the list.

That alone would have made us hit the brakes. But there’s more.

The economy isn’t helping

The war in Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. That one waterway carries roughly 20% of the world’s oil. When a fifth of the world’s oil gets cut off, it hits everything. Gas, groceries, shipping and factories all feel it. Prices are up across the board, and they won’t come back down any time soon.

Hospitals feel it too. Even the ones that pay nurses well are cutting staff and overtime. Monica and I don’t need the overtime. But we planned to pick up extra shifts to build our savings before the move, and that option is drying up fast.

The housing market shifted

We live in a neighborhood where homes usually sell fast. Not anymore.

Neighbors have listed their homes and watched them sit for 2 to 3 months. Some pulled their listings after getting only low offers. Others got no offers at all.

High interest rates, high home prices and fear of losing jobs keep buyers on the sidelines. Look at what is happening to tech workers and what AI is doing to whole industries. The job market feels shaky, and that shakes everything else.

If we list now, we could get stuck. We might have a house that won’t sell, or an offer so low it wipes out the equity we were counting on for this move.

The numbers made the call

Monica and I sat down and ran the monthly numbers for both cities. Both assume our son goes to public elementary school starting this fall. It’s not even close.

That is a swing of over $11,000 a month. In Sacramento we come out well ahead. In NYC we would be losing $3,576 a month.

Here is where that gap comes from:

Manhattan parking costs more. So does car insurance, and we would pay for health insurance ourselves. Even so, our NYC costs would only run about $1,300 a month higher than in Sacramento.

That’s a cost, but it is small next to the big one. We would trade two $100+ an hour jobs for one nurse’s $6,463 a month paycheck. That is over $10,000 a month in income, gone.

Here is the part that got me. Our rent in Manhattan would be $4,500 for a 3-bedroom, 1-bath apartment. In Sacramento, our mortgage, property tax and HOA add up to about the same. That pays for a 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath house with a 2-car garage and a rooftop patio.

It is the same housing payment, with a very different amount left over each month.

Our jobs are too good to walk away from right now

Here is where we stand:

• I make $116 an hour.
• Monica makes $149 an hour.
• We each work fewer than 20 hours a week.

Nurses across the country would kill for these jobs. I would be foolish to give them up and hope for the best.

The first plan was to:

• Sell the house
• Leave our jobs
• Live off the equity while I focus 100% on Map My Pay and Nurses to Riches
• Have Monica pick up a nursing job in New York

That plan still makes sense someday. But someday isn’t this August.

I take risks, just not reckless ones

You know me by now. I take risks other people won’t touch.

Monica and I packed up our whole life 9 years ago and moved across the country with no promises. We figured it out. We have missed our family every single day since. That is the biggest reason we wanted to move back, so our son could grow up closer to them.

But wanting something and running at it blindly are two different things. Being OK with risk doesn’t mean being foolish.

NYC hasn’t gotten better

We checked in with old coworkers who still work at NYC hospitals. They told us nothing has really changed. The ratios are still brutal, and the pay still doesn’t stretch. The working conditions are the same as when we left.

Moving back would mean trading two $100+ an hour jobs with light schedules for one $6,400 a month paycheck. We would be hoping our equity and the business fill the gap.

The math could still work. But our cushion is thinner than it was six months ago, and New York is no more welcoming than when we left. For more on why we left in the first place, read why California nursing is the smarter move.

What we are doing now

We are taking it day by day, with no big news and no dramatic moves. Here is where things stand:

• We applied for open enrollment at two of the best elementary schools in Sacramento.
• Our son is #2 on the waitlist for our top choice. He was #3 two weeks ago, so things are moving.
• We are looking at renting a small apartment in NYC. Our daughter would have a place near school, and Monica and I could visit family more often.
• We are keeping our jobs, our house and our options open.

The lesson in all this

When we first started Nurses to Riches, I talked a lot about the power of big moves. Moving to California changed our lives, and I stand by that 100%.

But part of growing up with money is knowing when to move and when to stay put. Sometimes the smart play is to sit tight, keep earning and wait for the right moment. You don’t have to force a move just because you circled a date on the calendar.

A six-figure nursing job with a flexible schedule is hard to replace. So is a house in a good neighborhood with locked-in equity. We won’t trade those for a plan that no longer lines up with our lives.

We’ll get back to New York someday, just not on the schedule we thought. Back in October 2025, we shared how much we spent on travel and our first plan for 2026. For a full month of our spending, see where every dollar went in a $23,571 month.

Written by Jason, RN. I went from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California and paid off $128K of debt in under a year. I share our numbers in the Nurses to Riches newsletter and on YouTube.