The Friend Who Changed Everything

I graduated nursing school in 2012. For years, I thought working at a top hospital in New York City meant I was set. The name on my badge was New York Presbyterian—the “best” hospital in the city. But the truth hit me in the most unexpected way.

One year into the job, my coworker disappeared. No goodbye, no warning. A few weeks later, I called him.
He said: “I moved to California.”

At first, I thought he was joking. But he had been living there for months. And then he told me something that turned my entire world upside down: nurses in Northern California were making over $200,000 a year. Not travelers. Staff nurses.

That single phone call started a chain of events that changed Monica’s and my life forever.

Our First Trips to California

When Monica and I heard the numbers, we couldn’t ignore them. In late 2016, we booked flights to San Diego. We thought the whole state paid nurses huge money, so why not start there?

San Diego was beautiful, but it felt dry and desert-like compared to the greenery we were used to on the East Coast. The homes all looked the same, and the prices on Zillow shocked us—over a million dollars for something decent.

Then came the biggest gut punch: salaries in San Diego weren’t even that much higher than what we were making in New York. It felt like we’d been misled.

When I called my friend, he laughed. “The money’s in Northern California,” he said. “Come up here instead.”

So a month later, we flew again—this time to San Francisco.

The Bay Area blew us away with its Victorian homes and the Golden Gate Bridge, but the housing costs were insane. Million-dollar price tags everywhere, even in neighborhoods we wouldn’t want to live in. And the weather wasn’t as warm as we thought—it stayed cool most of the year.

We started thinking maybe California wasn’t for us. Until we drove two hours east to visit my friend in Roseville.

Pulling Into Roseville

We expected to find him renting a modest apartment. Instead, we pulled into a neighborhood full of brand-new homes. My friend opened the door and casually mentioned: “We bought this place.”

He had only been in California for eight months. He was a staff nurse, not in management. And yet, here he was in a 4,000 sq ft home with his wife (also a nurse) and their three kids.

That visit flipped everything we thought we knew about nursing pay upside down.

Ratios, Pay, and Benefits We’d Never Seen Before

Inside his house, he explained what life was like as a nurse in California:

• Ratios by law. In the ER, no more than four patients per nurse. If you had a critical patient, you could go 1-to-1. Compared to New York, where we could have 7, 8, even 9 patients, this was mind-blowing.

• Overtime rules. Time-and-a-half after 8 hours. Double time after 12. If you worked 7 days in a row, the seventh shift was double time for the whole day. I had never even heard of benefits like that.

• Pay. Back then he was making over $80 an hour on nights. That was in 2017. Today, those same jobs are paying six figures more annually.

• Union strength. He said their contract was the model every other nurses’ union tried to copy.

It was enough to convince me right there. But then we looked at housing.

In Roseville, three-bedroom apartments rented for $1,500–$1,600. And homes—2,000 to 3,000 square feet—were selling for $450K to $650K. My friend and his wife bought their 4,000 sq ft home for $650K.

We were paying $2,500 for an 800 sq ft apartment in New York. The difference was night and day.

The Numbers Then vs Now

Back then, it felt like stepping into another world. And the data today tells the same story.

Here’s a simplified snapshot of what 2025 looks like for nurses in three cities:

*Housing numbers shown as median home price or average rent.

Sacramento jumps out immediately. Nurses there keep twice as much as in New York—even after paying for housing.

Median vs. Our Reality

The median RN in Sacramento earns about $78/hr and grosses $163K a year working full-time hours. That alone beats NYC and San Diego.

At Kaiser, I make $109/hr in the ER. Monica makes $142/hr as a per diem tele nurse. If we worked the same full-time hours as the median, that would push our salaries to $220K and $250K.

But here’s the key: we don’t work full-time hours.

We work less, still stay debt-free, and have more time with our kids. Even on reduced schedules, we end up with more leftover than the median. That’s the real power of Northern California nursing: you can earn above average without burning yourself out.

The Move That Changed Our Lives

Within months of that Roseville visit, I had a job offer. A few months later, Monica joined me.

Since then:

• We paid off $128,000 of debt in under a year.

• We bought a home.

• We work fewer hours than we ever did in New York.

• And we live with far less stress—financially and at the bedside.

The Takeaway

• Don’t assume “top hospital” = best life.

• Always compare pay with cost of living.

• If you land the right hospital in the right city, you can work less and build wealth faster.

For us, it meant tripling our income potential, buying a home, and freeing up our time.
For you, it might mean something just as life-changing.

Do you want to make more as a nurse?

I built the Nurses to Riches Accelerator to help you:

• Relocate to Northern California the smart way

• Secure a high-paying hospital job (we’re talking $200K+ a year)

• Learn to calculate your real take-home pay

• Work fewer hours—without sacrificing income

• Start investing + paying off debt like a boss

I’ll even show you how to compare hospitals, filter by pay and shift type, and fast-track your move so you’re not spinning your wheels for another year.

Use code LOYALTY10 for 10% off the program

Weekly Update:

1. Watch our latest YouTube videos:

   • It's Happening... Even Kaiser Nurses Are Losing Their Jobs

   • Is AI Going To Take Nursing Jobs?

   • Thousands of Nurses Could Lose Their Jobs—And No One’s Stopping It

   • I’m a Nurse. Trump's Tax Cut Helps Me—But It’s a Disaster for the Poor

   • ICU Nurses Have Every Advantage EXCEPT This One Thing

   • This Is Why Some Nurses Make $100/hr… and You Don’t

2. Download our app — Map My Pay so you can compare nurse salaries and cost of living data across over 1000 US cities.

3. Browse our selection of spreadsheets to help you find a city and hospital that will pay you what you deserve to be paid

4. Book a 1-2-1 call

5. Join our Nurses to Riches Accelerator