Sup nurses,

You may probably not be aware of it yet but Northern California nurses are known as the highest-paid in the entire country. Still, there is one specific area where the wages far outweigh the cost of living—Sacramento, CA.

Besides the financial benefits, you will find that most of the nurses in this city will also be some of the happiest you will ever meet.

And how could they not be?

The ER nurses get at most 4 patients per load (1:2 max if their patients are critically ill).

ICU nurses don’t get more than 2.

The medsurg nurses max out at 5.

Step-down nurses cap off at 3.

And tele nurses top off at 4 patients.

In addition to all those things, if you work for an employer like Kaiser, you will get Bay Area wages and some of the best benefits in the world.

I recently posted one of my coworker's paystubs on Instagram. It was well-received with over 390 comments requesting that I reveal the taxes and net income.

So, let me give you some background about this coworker:

She is in her early 30s, in a relationship, and does not have any children.

She has a home, which she purchased in the $500k range in 2023.

She spends around $7,000/month on living expenses (stay tuned because we’ll break down her budget in a future newsletter or video).

Now, let’s discuss how many hours (roughly) she worked in the two-week pay period for which she earned a gross income of $21,197.31.

As you can see from the paystub breakdown of hours worked, she worked a total of 133.17 hours. She was initially scheduled to work 129 hours but either clocked in early or clocked out late and put in a total of 133.17 hours.

You should also see that she was quite literally at work every day during the pay period.

This is something I’ve done before but never to this extent. We call it “a run” in the Kaiser system and the most number of days I’ve worked in a row was 18—many of those days were 4-hour shifts.

Ok, now for the part you all subscribed to this newsletter for.

Let’s break down her net income and how much she actually got to take home.

You can probably see it clearly now but if you don't, let me explain:

Her net income is $16,275.13 for 133.170 hours of work (or an average of 66 hours per week) in two weeks.

She paid $2,021.68 in state income tax but $0.00 in federal income tax.

She changed her federal withholding status for the pay period to exempt in anticipation of earning an unusually high income for the pay period.

Some of you may also be wondering how her gross income was $21,197.31 but she earns $104.30 as her base pay. You may be saying “Isn’t $21,197.31 divided by $104.30 equal to 203.23 hours of work?” and you’d be right in saying that but one thing I’ve always told nurses to do is to work smarter, not harder.

First, this employee is a “weekender” nurse and she earns 10% more because she works at least one day every weekend of the year.

Second, she is an evening shift employee, so she earns an evening shift differential of $8.9123 per hour.

Third, she knows how to play the game, so instead of picking up most hours on her days off, she stays an extra 4 hours on her days “on” and was able to pick up double time hours on the other days. During this pay period, 66.3 of the hours she worked were paid at 1.5x her regular rate, and 25.8 hours were paid at double her regular rate.

Fourth, she was able to pick up a full shift on a holiday and Kaiser pays nurses double time and a half—yes, you read that right, double time and a half.

So, this nurse was essentially able to double her earning power because of the way she worked and not because of how hard she worked.

She tells me that the reason she has been working so hard is because she wants to pay off all of her debts and begin to invest in real estate.

The reason we created our coaching program is to show nurses how to get licensed and move to Northern California (specifically the Sacramento area), make more, and spend less, ultimately leading them to financial independence, investing their money, and removing the shackles of being a W2 employee.

And our course is on sale but prices will be increasing soon.

During the sale, we are offering everyone a 50% discount.

However, because you are subscribed to our newsletter, we are giving you an extra 5% off on top of the already heavily discounted rate!

If you get in soon, you will be able to purchase the course for up to 55% off.

GO TO OUR WEBSITE AND USE COUPON CODE “LOYAL5” AT CHECKOUT TO CLAIM YOUR DISCOUNT

See you soon!

Jason