A nurse I know in Sacramento grossed $21,197.31 in one two-week pay period. She took home $16,275.13. She did it by working smarter, not just harder.
When I posted her paystub on Instagram, it got over 390 comments asking for her taxes and net pay. So here is the full breakdown.
These rates are from June 2024, when this was first written. Pay changes every year, so check current rates in Map My Pay.
Why Sacramento nurses are so happy
Northern California nurses are known as the highest paid in the country. In one area, the pay is far higher than the cost of living: Sacramento.
On top of the pay, most nurses here are some of the happiest you will meet. A big reason is the patient limits.
| Unit | Most patients per nurse |
|---|---|
| ER | 4 (2 if patients are critically ill) |
| ICU | 2 |
| Med-surg | 5 |
| Step-down | 3 |
| Tele | 4 |
About this nurse
She is in her early 30s and in a relationship, with no kids.
She bought a home in the $500K range in 2023. She spends about $7,000 a month on living costs.
How many hours she worked
In this pay period, she worked 133.17 hours. She was set to work 129 hours. She clocked in early or stayed late enough to add about 4 more hours.
She was at work every single day of the pay period.
I have done this before, but never to this extent. We call it a run. The most days I have worked in a row was 18, and many of those were 4-hour shifts. You can see it in this video.
Her paystub, line by line
Here is how much she actually took home.
| Line | This pay period | Year to date |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | $21,197.31 | $134,142.90 |
| State income tax | $2,021.68 | $10,316.63 |
| Social Security | $1,306.48 | $8,239.36 |
| Medicare | $305.55 | $1,926.95 |
| State Disability Insurance | $231.79 | $1,461.82 |
| Federal income tax | $0.00 | $12,889.90 |
| 401(k), pre-tax | $847.89 | $14,910.22 |
| FSA | $125.00 | $1,250.00 |
| Union dues | $78.56 | $864.16 |
| Extra life insurance | $5.23 | $52.30 |
| Net pay | $16,275.13 | $82,231.56 |
Her net pay was $16,275.13 for 133.17 hours of work in two weeks. That is about 66 hours a week.
She paid $2,021.68 in state income tax and $0.00 in federal income tax. She knew this check would be much bigger than normal, so she set her federal withholding to exempt for this pay period.
How she earned it: work smarter, not harder
Her base pay is $104.30 an hour. You might do the math and say $21,197.31 divided by $104.30 is 203.23 hours. You would be right. But she only worked 133.17 hours.
I always tell nurses to work smarter, not harder. Here is how she did it.
1. She is a weekender
She works at least one day every weekend of the year. That earns her 10% more.
2. She works evenings
She gets an evening shift differential of $8.9123 an hour.
3. She stays late on her work days
She knows how to play the game. She doesn’t pick up most of her extra hours on her days off. She stays an extra 4 hours on the days she already works, and she picked up double time on other days.
In this pay period, 66.3 of her hours were paid at 1.5 times her regular rate. Another 25.8 hours were paid at double her regular rate.
4. She worked a holiday
She picked up a full shift on a holiday. Her hospital pays double time and a half for that. Yes, double time and a half.
She was able to double her earning power because of the way she worked, not because of how hard she worked. For more on this, read how to work less and earn more as a nurse and what a nurse earns on a 16-hour shift.
Why she works so much
She told me she is working this hard to pay off all her debt. After that, she wants to start investing in property.
Your next move
See what you’d take home, then make the move
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The Nurses to Riches Accelerator is the plan Monica and I used to go from $37 an hour in New York to $143 an hour in California: license, city, hospital, and what to do with the money after.
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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.