How a travel nurse earning $187,000 a year spends his money

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s millennial money The series details how people around the world make, spend and save money.

In 2020, Aspen Tucker, who was working as a nurse at a hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina, came across a job posting for a travel nurse.

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a hospital in Amarillo, Texas urgently needed additional staff. This position paid $6,700 per 48 hour work week.

“It clicked in my head. I said, ‘I have to do this. I can’t wait. I can’t just sit back and wait for the money.’

There was no time to lose for Tucker, who estimated he was making about $2,000 in his biweekly paycheck at the time. “I hate to say this, but I didn’t give notice. I took my package to Texas and when I got there I told my manager, ‘Sorry, I have to go. This is a one-time-only thing.’ A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Since his first job, Tucker has traveled from coast to coast, usually undertaking traveling nursing contracts of four to thirteen weeks. He tries to get as much work done as possible during his contract, and he often works 48 to 60 hours a week to maximize his overtime pay.

As a result, Tucker earns an impressive salary while working only eight to nine months of the year. In 2022, he made his $187,000, leaving plenty of time and money to satisfy his lifelong wanderlust.

When he’s not at work, “the first thing I do is book a vacation,” he says. I’m trying to knock out all the places that are.”

Places he has traveled to date include Belize, Colombia, Seychelles, Qatar and Kenya.

But Tucker’s plans don’t stop at travel. He’s also building a solid financial future while giving back to the people and communities that helped shape him.

His work and travels have taken him far, but Tucker has always called Spartanburg home.

Growing up there, he had no shortage of strong financial role models. According to Tucker, he was able to amass a modest fortune despite his grandfather receiving only his sixth-grade education. “He wasn’t a great reader or writer, but what I tried to follow him was that he always worked and always believed in his ownership.”

By the time he died, according to Tucker, his grandfather owned several income-generating properties that his father unfortunately could not hang on to.

In his mother, Tucker found another mentor. After having the first of her three children at age 13 (her other at 18 and her youngest son Aspen at 23), she works hard to earn a living. That was not an option for her.

Tucker knows it’s been tough at times for his family. She was even able to purchase her first home at the age of 19, says Tucker.

After graduating from high school in 2012, Tucker worked in a variety of jobs, including working at a large retail store and a local BMW factory. The BMW factory was a “dream job” for many of his local peers, says Tucker.

Thanks in part to his mother’s generosity, he always managed to save money. She and her husband Tucker’s stepfather, both traveling nurses, kept him in their home rent-free until he was 27 years old.

Further inspired by her mother, Tucker enrolled in a nursing program and graduated in 2020 with an associate’s degree and $50,000 in student loans. That same year, he used his savings to buy a house, putting his $4,000 into his $93,000 townhome in Spartanburg.

When the opportunity to travel and significantly increase his income arose, Tucker felt that being based in South Carolina was the best of both worlds. “I can get a good salary as a travel nurse, but I can also go back to a place where the cost of living is lower,” he says.

Here’s how Tucker spent his money in December 2022.

• housing: $2,748 in townhome rent and utilities, plus Airbnb in Fresno, CA
• Support for friends and family: $1,642
• Discretionary: $1,615 for clothes, laundry, shopping, and someone to look after the house and dog while I’m away
• Transportation facilities: $1,586 to pay for rental car, gas, Uber rides, and car at home
• food: $1,440 for groceries and dining out
• Travel and entertainment: $1,062 for tickets to concerts and sporting events plus return trip to Spartanburg
• insurance: $893 premium for auto, health and homeowners insurance
• subscription: $132 for a gym membership and cheap airfare subscriptions with Apple Music, Netflix, Roku and Scott
• phone: his cell phone plan is $105

December was a five-time pay month, and Tucker was able to earn more than $20,000 during his contract in Fresno, Calif. But understanding where being on the go affects his budget It’s not difficult.

That month, in addition to paying his mortgage and utilities at home, he split an Airbnb with his girlfriend (who is also a traveling nurse who occasionally works at the same hospital). In addition, he paid his friend to monitor his house and car and take care of his dog, a husky named Skye.

In addition to paying for the truck’s car (he also owns two cars), Tucker paid for a rental car in California.

And since neither he nor his girlfriend cook much, he almost always eats out when traveling.

Another financial variable Tucker has to keep an eye on is insurance. He pays premiums while on contract, but is uninsured while on contract.

“I think smart and try to do everything while I’m on that deal,” he says.

That recently meant pulling out a sore wisdom tooth while working in California. But are you on break now? “You have to be careful,” he says. “I used to play a lot of basketball, but now I’m like, ‘I can’t break my leg if I don’t have health insurance.'”

Even with the high monthly expenses, Tucker’s savings are staggering. He recently closed his second Spartanburg home, a duplex with a $57,000 down payment.

In February, we welcomed a long-term tenant to one side of the property. That rent covers a good chunk of the $1,200 monthly mortgage payment for the house. Tucker plans to rent the other half of the house and his two spare rooms in the townhome on his Airbnb.

Looking ahead, Tucker hopes to eventually settle down and rely more on real estate and other business investments for income (and less on wages). “I want to create more real estate opportunities for myself [so] You can work less and less. ”

Still, Tucker is committed to giving back to the community that raised him. Some of them are informal. In December, the majority of Tucker’s spending was on cash gifts to family and friends over the holiday season, including several payments to friends currently in jail.

“It could be me, after all,” says Tucker. “If you come from our community, especially the poor African-American community, there aren’t many opportunities. So do me.”

Tucker recently established a scholarship in her mother’s name to help nursing students of color at her alma mater.

For Tucker, it all comes down to the values ​​he was raised with. “I always followed his grandfather’s blueprints. He helped everyone out,” he says. “I guess that’s how I tried to do it. You could say it’s an investment. Maybe it’s not. It could just be bad spending. But I love and care about people.” It means a lot to them.”

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