Locum CRNA Income and Expenses 2024
I work for an LLC providing full-time locum CRNA coverage. Mrs. TFC works for the same company as the bookkeeper, scheduler, and manager of yours truly. The following are approximations. These are not official tax documents, but rather an estimate of my 2024 numbers and what you may expect undertaking a similar endeavor.
There are many ways to run a business. Each with their pros and cons. I’m not saying this is the most efficient or stylish way, but this is what 2024 looked like in the TFC household.
Money In
Services – 96%
Two sources of income. The most significant from contracted services. I’m probably not allowed to give exact gross income numbers on the internet, but assume income qualifies as High-End Henry on the Locum CRNA: Financially Independent in 5 Years post.
Stipend – 4%
A much lesser source of income from travel, lodging, and food reimbursement/stipends. Mrs. TFC booked the housing. During a 4-month period, we stayed in a house provided by the hospital.
I estimate we paid for and were reimbursed 40% of the time. The agency booked housing 25% of the time. The hospital provided housing 35% of the time. Mileage was reimbursed at the IRS rate. Only 1 location paid a food stipend of $30 per day.
I would usually insert a pie chart, but a 96/4 pie chart isn’t that exciting.
Money Out
Effective Tax Rate – 27% of Gross Income
Taxes, taxes, taxes…In 2023, I think the TFC household paid something like a 28% effective tax rate. This was for two incomes, two maxed traditional 401(k)s, and a maxed HSA. This year was about the same
The plan was to utilize Roth Solo401(k) contributions which would have increased taxation significantly. Planning for early retirement, I’m not concerned about converting a traditional retirement account with years of lower taxation. We utilize annual Backdoor Roth IRA contributions for diversification despite taxation.
Here is taxation by category. State taxes include 3 different states shown as a total of all taxes paid.
Federal Income Tax – 56%
Payroll Tax – 22%
State Income Tax – 21%
Other Taxation – 1%
Speaking of payroll taxes.
Payroll – 24% of Gross Income
We do our own payroll. We were both paid a monthly salary. It took a bit to get the withholdings dialed in, but we made it work. This was expected to be a bigger portion. I ended up working more weeks than expected.
Solo401(k) – 14% of Gross Income
Mrs. TFC and I have Solo401(k)s. We opted for a traditional Solo401(k) with employEE and employER contributions. Didn’t truly max the Solo401(k), so the percentages won’t reveal our gross income. Misplay on my part.
Next year, this will look a bit different because we will fully max the $140,000 using the Mega Backdoor Roth Conversion. Woo.
Business Expenses – 8% of Gross Income
We had business expenses. This includes health insurance premiums, lodging, travel, licensure, and malpractice among other expenses. I’ll release a post breaking down expenses a bit more. Some of these expenses were reimbursed per my contract. This is the loosest of all the categories here because I’m not looking at QuickBooks, but it gives you an idea of where we are.
No home office or Augusta rule. No airplanes. No car leases, just fuel and a percentage of maintenance. No ultrasound or videoscope. I don’t even think our CPA billed us yet, so that’s not included here.
Distributions – 27% of Gross Income
Distributions are profits remaining after the dust settles. This was our first year in business, so we were operating with more than a few uncertainties. How many weeks of work? How reliable is the work? What if I lose a contract and don’t have credentials elsewhere? How much to withhold for taxes?
The plan was to take distributions quarterly, but it didn’t work out that way. I took a big distribution in June after Q2 taxes. Then a smaller one in September. I just took a distribution after receiving our tax estimate for 2024. I used leftover funds from 2024 to frontload our retirement accounts.
Our 2025 goal is to frontload our Solo401(k)s, Roth IRAs, and HSA by April. Then fund the brokerage account through the end of the year.
We were pretty conservative with the books. We held a bunch of money in the business account wayyy longer than needed. Missed out on market returns for peace of mind I guess. Business is constant learning and adjusting. We definitely don’t have things figured out, but we did okay.
TFC 2024 Summary
Basically, we had a good year. It was a lot of the following in no particular order:
Fun
Work
Call
Weekend Call
Windshield Hours
Hotel Stays
Learning
Money-in-pocket was about 65% of gross. Being self-employed, we had to pay for our own benefits. Fortunately that was with pretax dollars.
Traveling full time means our personal cost of living expenses were low which translates to most of the take home pay going straight into investments. One step closer to FI.
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Thanks for reading!
