Worked as a nursing aide after high school throughout college. Recently graduated in December 2024. Started working as a new grad nurse in January 2025. Got a promotion halfway into the year and lots of OT opportunities. Always fun to meet different families and taking care of patients as young as a few weeks old to over 100. Grateful for my compensation and being hired to a job that I enjoy!
I was super lucky. I was offered and accepted a position for $37 an hour a year before graduation. A week before my start date, I got an email from HR saying I would be starting at $41 due to cost of living changes etc. Halfway through the year, I switched to a weekend position that pays $52 before any differentials. Our hospital is almost always short, so they also offer x1.5 for incentive pay for picking up shifts.
I live in Western Mass. Our 2 local hospital are offering : $41-$42 / Hr base pay for new grads before differential. How long were you on orientation ????? I’ll be graduating in May
We have a lot of different hospitals within a 20 mile radius here in MN! My orientation was 2 months long. 3 12s each week. After that, I was able to work on my own between 5 different units. After a few months, I fan now float to 10 units. Congratulations in advance! I highly recommend watching Mark Klimeks 12 lecture videos to study for the NCLEX; they're free online!
I’m in DC area and hospitals have 3-5 mo (MedStar) and 12 months (Johns Hopkins) new nurse residencies. Starting pay is $36-40. Which is absolutely appalling because my husband’s military housing allowance is $4000+/mo alone in the area
How much OT is this? I would live and work as staff in MN for this pay. I am a travel nurse. Every place that ever tries to get me to go staff only offers like 85k a year lol.
500 hours of OT. A few of our telemetry travelers signed on for staff roles after their contract extension ended actually haha
Ah got ya. I take that back haha. I will stick to travel nursing then. Since you can float so well, you should look into traveling or going somewhere to get ICU experience specifically to travel. I only do about 100 hours of overtime in a year. Take home is 122k last year. I am OR, did ICU as well. I do 0 floating since I am OR, just a fair amount of call sometimes.
I was thinking about it, but I really like the facility I'm at and I enjoy coming to work. I would be able to train to ICU within the next 6 months if I stay at this location. Props to you, I don't think I could do OR. I like the inpatient acute care setting.
I do miss the icu as far as really using my brain but the OR gives me a sense of actually helping people. Icu during covid and the one I was in even after covid felt like were just pickling people until family can make a decision. This was in FL which is not fun to be in healthcare in that state.
That’s crazy pay for not west coast / CA. 70 hourly or something?
$54 before differentials
Taxes are insane.. $3842? Thats almost $2k/week
Also what specialty are you?
I try not to look at taxes 😂 I'm in float pool. I work on med surg, cardiac/tele, ortho, pediatrics, and step down progressive units. Hoping to be able to float to ICU after I gather more experience on the progressive units
How many extra shifts do you pick up?
Edit: Just saw you did 500 hrs OT.
I try to only pick up 12s, so around 42 shifts this year
I'm also in RN in Minneapolis. 10 years PCU unit, straight nights. Base salary 58.44 an hour which is 121,545.00 year. But with night differential, weekends, holidays my 2025 gross is $154,652 with hardly any OT.
That's awesome! I don't think I could do nights, I was very fortunate to get a straight days position. I don't plan on working so much overtime in the future, but was trying to pay off school debts and paying for a wedding too.
I couldn't survive days. All the phone calls, dragging people with multiple lines to and from the litter to multiple procedures, crazy family members, entertaining the dementia patients. No thanks, day shift is extra manual labor with zero extra monetary rewards. But I do understand night shift can take 6 years off your life span so there's that. Also, I would never go into middle management, I love the ability to pick up OT here and there for minor expenses. Congratulations on the wedding!
Mmmk, help me with my studies. Now I want to be an RN. Lol
Khan academy, osmosis, registered nurse rn, and mark klimek helped me a lot
How many years of experience do you have and what’s the base pay for new graduates RN’s at your place of work?
1 year of experience as of January 2026 as an RN. I got off orientation in march of 2025. Starting pay is $42 for new grads, non union hospital.
You are killing it at 22!! I was barely making $6 an hr when I was 22 (in 2009)!!
I really appreciate it, thank you! I'm been blessed and very lucky with the job I got. I used to work at a pizzeria for $10 an hour before college. This year feels surreal