Stocking Up: How To Save Money On Essentials For Your Travel Nurse Rental Home
By Alex McCoy, Contributing Writer, Owner of Fit Travel Life Editor’s note: Stocking Up is a three-part miniseries that covers the essential travel items and furnishing methods Alex McCoy uses to make it feel more like home at each new travel assignment without breaking the bank. You can read part one by clicking here, or jump to part three by clicking here. Finding housing can be one of the most stressful parts of working as a travel nurse. At the beginning of my career, I always looked for a place that had all the bells and whistles: furniture, linens, and dishes seemed like “must-haves” for a short term lease. I started to realize that this was actually costing me money as I have moved back and forth across the country. I could pay for the convenience of having everything I needed ready and waiting or I could spend a little extra time and cash up front and save myself hundreds of dollars a month at each assignment. Aside from corporate rentals or Airbnb, I have found that most apartment complexes that offer furnished options do not usually offer a “fully stocked” option. This means your apartment will have all of the big pieces of furniture, but smaller items such as dishes and linens will not be provided. I have found these rentals to be much cheaper than move-in ready versions, and for our last three assignments, we have gone this route instead. In the process, I have learned several shortcuts to get all the necessities we need without breaking the bank or overflowing the car. 1. Get familiar with Dollar Tree and other discount stores. My first stop is Dollar Tree whenever we have to purchase small household items including kitchen utensils, dish towels and bathroom accessories . I usually make a list of things we need and go their first and see if I can get lucky and find most of the items I need. After that, I go to Big Lots. I can usually find some of the larger items here like shower curtains or small kitchen appliances for $10 or less. By purchasing cheaper versions of some necessities, I can usually keep my first-day expenses under $150 and donate anything that won’t fit in my car at the end of the assignment. 2. Remember that you likely won’t be entertaining large groups of guests. I think one of the reasons we stress about having certain items in our home is because friends and family might be coming to visit and “need” something like a matching hand towel or an extra blanket if they get cold. When you start to think about what you personally use on a regular basis, the need for extra “stuff” will start to dwindle. Even when we do have friends come out to visit, we simply make a joke about the travel life and hand them our plastic silverware and a paper plate. 3. Pare down linens to the bare minimum. When it comes to bulkier items like blankets and towels, space gets taken up wdqquickly. As a traveler, you have to analyze what you actually use on a regular basis, and weed out items that you might have at home for “show” rather than usability. For example, traveling with a good quality fleece blanket or heavy afghan will take up less space than a comforter. Try to bring no more than two towels per person—one for everyday use and an extra in case you go to the pool, gym, etc. Use dish towels that can double as hot pads when cooking. 4. Opt for disposable options. Madeleine Olivia Get Rid Of It GIF from Madeleineolivia GIFs While producing extra waste is not my favorite way to live, often as a traveler, we have to take a few shortcuts here or there. One way I have learned to save space when packing is to utilize disposable silverware, plates, and bakeware when I can. One way I do this and cut back on overall waste is to reuse these items as I can. By buying the heavy duty plasticware, you can actually get quite a bit of use of them by re-washing. I have also rewashed plastic cups and aluminum pans that are meant to be disposable and then I try to recycle as much as I can when they are worn out. 5. Be willing to do dishes and laundry more frequently. If you only have one towel or just a couple sets of silverware it is inevitable that you will have to wash these items quite frequently. I often hand wash my dishes as I use them because I know I will be using them again soon. I also do a lot more laundry as a traveler than I did when I had a permanent home. This may seem like a little bit of a pain, but the other option would be to create more space in your vehicle for extra items or splurge on a few things you want to donate at the end of your stay. I personally am fine with washing my towel every couple of days to save a little money and space. 6. Don’t stress—you’ll get more efficient as you go along. Model Of Efficiency GIF from Model GIFs Any long term traveler will tell you that as your career progresses you will find yourself getting better at streamlining what you need and cutting back on what you don’t. I used to spend way too much money stocking up on “needs” at the beginning of each assignment and quickly realized how fast three months goes by and what we really use in that time frame. Now, if I end up needing it, I can always go back for it. Whether you decide to aim for the convenience of a move-in ready rental or to save a little cash by bargain shopping your first few days, you will find the routine that works best for your lifestyle
Stocking Up: My Top 5 Travel Nursing Kitchen Must-Haves
By Alex McCoy, Contributing Writer, Owner of Fit Travel Life Editor’s note: Stocking Up is a three-part mini series that covers the essential travel items and furnishing methods Alex McCoy uses to make it feel more like home at each new travel assignment without breaking the bank. You can read part two here. You guys—I love to cook. Like, a lot. Before travel nursing, I had all the gadgets. Pressure cooker, Ninja blender, wine glasses for each style of wine…the list went on. But when we had to pack up our life into our small SUV and Nissan Altima for our first out-of-state travel assignment, I knew there was simply no way I could fit all of my precious kitchen items into our new lifestyle. After almost two years on the road it is safe to say I have our kitchen box down to a science. I have made a few alterations as we’ve gone along, and I also have some “disposable” items that I can donate and then buy again at Goodwill if needed. By keeping a few quality items on hand I have made sure we still eat healthy, home cooked meals on a regular basis and that everything I need for the kitchen fits into one 30 gallon tub. My number one tip would be to start with the box you know is feasible for your vehicle, and dedicate only that space to kitchen supplies. If an item doesn’t fit in the box, try 13 weeks without it. Worst case scenario? Amazon will deliver just about anything you could need. My Top 5 Travel Nursing Kitchen Must-Haves 1. Crock-Pot A lot of people swear by their Instant Pot, but I left mine behind in favor of my trusty slow cooker. I love it for long work days because I come home to a ready-to-eat meal, whereas with a pressure cooker I would still have to throw it all in and wait 30 minutes or so for dinner to be ready. Fun fact: I left my Crock-Pot behind for one assignment where we had to pare our belongings down to one car and I thought I could make it three months without it. It took me one week and I ordered a new one on Amazon. I will never ever leave it behind again. 2. A high-quality kitchen knife While it would be nice to have the perfect knife for every occasion, I have found that keeping one high quality knife and sharpener in my box does the trick. I usually buy a medium-sized knife so I can use it for lots of different tasks (think cutting open a spaghetti squash or eating a steak you grilled at home). Another option is to buy a mid-range knife every couple of assignments. Depending on how often you cook, the blade may stay sharp enough for several months and then you can purchase a new one when you start feeling like it isn’t safe to cut your sweet potatoes any longer. 3. Dutch Oven Initially, I thought I could get away with my crock-pot for all of my bulk meals or entrees that needed a larger pan. I quickly realized I needed something with a little more room to cook some of my favorite recipes like taco chili soup or salisbury steak. This is not an item you have to buy high-end. I was already on assignment when I realized how much I needed some sort of soup pot, so I made a trip to the nearest thrift store and found a plethora of large pots to choose from. This is also an item that you could probably donate and re-purchase if needed, as most of the thrift store options were under $5. 4. High-quality skillet People might argue you can make do with whatever is supplied at your rental house, or you can purchase this from a thrift store. However, after our first assignment where the cheap, nonstick coating from the provided pan started scraping off into our food, I decided keeping my own skillet was worth the extra space. I personally have a nice Calphalon pan that can also go into the oven up to 500 degrees, so it doubles as a casserole dish when needed! This is an item I would splurge on a little bit as it is hands down the most utilized cooking tool in my box. 5. Pizza cutter Yes, I run a health and fitness coaching program and no, I am not above a homemade pizza night or a good ole’ take-and-bake every once in awhile. For those occasions, there is nothing worse than trying to cut a hot pizza with your medium-sized kitchen knife without burning your fingers or sliding the cheese all over. This is another item we did not bring at first and ended up buying early on. Since then, we make sure our pizza cutter makes the cut (no pun intended) every time we start packing up. While there are some other kitchen items I would love to bring along—my favorite wine glass and my French press are top of the list—I have found that with everything else we can usually make do. Most of my other kitchen utensils come from Dollar Tree, which makes it easy to get rid of them if we need to make space. I also like to reach out and ask if there are specific items provided by the rental I have chosen. Things like a toaster or coffee maker might seem standard, but I have found most landlords have differing ideas of what’s considered a necessity. >> Part Two: How To Save Money On Essentials For Your New Rental Home
Find Your New Happy Place: WalletHub Releases 2019 “Happiest Cities In America” List
Some travel healthcare professionals already know that where a job is located can have a big impact on how much they enjoy working there. It can be difficult, though, to narrow down which city they will enjoy working in the most. A new list released by WalletHub, a personal finance education website, could help with that issue. WalletHub released the 2019 rankings for their annual “Happiest Cities In America” study Monday, which evaluated 182 of the largest U.S. cities based on 31 indicators of happiness, like the depression rate, income-growth rate and average leisure time spent per day, according to their website. Those key factors were combined into three main categories—”Emotional and Physical Well-Being,” “Income and Employment,” and “Community and Environment,” which produced a composite score for each city. While not all of the indicators listed in the study affect travelers directly—like the rate of separations and divorces in each city—others have a more direct impact, including ideal weather, crime rate, access to parks and open spaces, commute time, and illness and disability rates. The top 10 happiest cities in America, based on WalletHub’s rankings, are: Plano, Texas Irvine, California Madison, Wisconsin Fremont, California Huntington Beach, California Fargo, North Dakota Grand Prarie, Texas San Jose, California Scottsdale, Arizona San Francisco, California Among the top 10, Fremont received the highest rank for “Community and Environment” and San Jose for “Emotional and Physical Well-Being.” Seattle, Washington, which ranked overall at No. 54, received the highest ranking in the “Income and Employment” category. The results are intriguing, but should not be used as the ultimate solution to fixing the blues, experts say. Most studies suggest that finding and fostering happiness is less about a location and more about how people engage with their jobs, their communities and the experiences they choose to have. Travelers can view the full results of the analysis on the WalletHub website.