30-year-old vet more than doubled her income to $386,000 a year

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

Growing up in a Pakistani-Indian household, Dr. Sidrah Nisar’s parents encouraged her from a young age to become a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

“It was a very education-heavy focus growing up,” the 30-year-old tells CNBC Make It.

Nisar decided to go the doctor route, but instead of working with humans, she treats cats and dogs as a veterinarian in Corona, California.

“I was definitely always an animal lover growing up,” she says. “I am allergic to cats and dogs and any type of fur, so it was a little thing I had to overcome, but I definitely am very happy with my career choice.”

Nisar held full-time positions at a couple of different animal hospitals before her sister, a fellow vet, suggested she pick up shifts as a relief vet using an app called Roo to earn extra cash. “I was like, ‘Wow, I could be making $1,300 [or] $1,400 today,'” she says. 

At the time, Nisar was earning around $125,000 as a salaried doctor in private practice. She started picking up shifts on Roo in May 2023 and left her full-time position in September of that year.

Now, she works as a relief vet full time. Rather than holding a staff position at an animal hospital, she finds clinics in her vicinity and works up to 10-hour shifts four or five days a week. 

Nisar earned just over $366,000 from shifts she picked up on Roo in 2024. She became a brand ambassador for the app in March 2024, earning her an additional $18,000. Including a couple of other vet shifts Nisar worked outside of Roo, her total income for 2024 was $386,000.

Vets on Roo earn nearly twice as much per hour as the average full-time vet, and on average make $1,266 per day, the company says. Nationwide, vets earn a median of $125,510 per year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The increased pay working as a contractor versus a full-time employee has been nice, Nisar says. And though it has some downsides, relief work is “also significantly less stress,” she says.

“When you’re doing relief [shifts], you go in, you do your work and then you leave and you don’t have to worry about the follow-up care or the drama that you can get when you stay at a practice,” says Nisar.

Nisar says her parents paid for both her undergraduate degree and veterinarian school, allowing her to graduate debt-free. But the jump from living as a student and making no money for more than five years — two years of undergraduate and three and a half years of vet school — to working full-time and making six figures was an adjustment.

“I had more money than I could handle,” she says.

Nisar says she was a little frivolous at first, spending on “unnecessary things” like luxury bags and gifts for family members. She once spent $4,000 on jewelry in Tokyo, partly due to a misunderstanding about the exchange rate. But the moment made her realize, “I definitely can’t splurge like this, and I need to be careful with my money,” she says.

A financially savvy uncle helped answer Nisar’s money questions and set her up to manage her bills and start saving for the future. She opened a brokerage account and started putting money aside, she says. She now invests around $800 per month.

In June 2024, about a year into working as a higher-paid relief vet, Nisar purchased a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Southern California for $890,000 with a 20% down payment. She pays about $8,000 per month for her mortgage, homeowners association fees and utilities

“When I realized I’d be making significantly more money, I decided to invest that money instead of just having it sit in a bank account. And I decided to buy a house,” she says.

While Nisar appreciates the extra income she’s able to earn as a relief vet, “you kind of always have to be hustling and looking for work,” she says. Fortunately for her, she hasn’t yet had a month where she struggled to find enough shifts to make sure her financial obligations are met.

Another drawback: She had to get her own health insurance as a contractor, which costs her around $2,300 a month for health, vision and dental coverage.

Though she’s getting married in early November and will soon split costs with her fiancé, Nisar currently lives alone and covers all her bills on her own. Here’s how she spent her money in August 2025.

Housing and utilities: $8,052 on her mortgage, homeowners association fees and utilitiesWedding expenses: $2,515 for her photographer and wedding attireInsurance: $2,450 on health, vision, dental, pet and life coverage Food: $1,700 on groceries and dining outDiscretionary: $1,450 on weekly home cleaning services and pet suppliesCar payment: $1,000 for her TeslaSavings and investments: $800 into her Roth individual retirement account Phone: $550 for phone plans for herself and three of her family membersSubscriptions and memberships: $107 for a gym membership, streaming services, AppleCare and ChatGPT Plus

Nisar’s parents “really drilled” the importance of financial security into her when she was growing up, she says, and she’s grateful for the life she’s able to live due to her income. She doesn’t track every dollar she spends, but she’s more conscious of where her money is going than when she was fresh out of school, she says.

“I do have a budget now, but if I want to splurge on something I won’t stop myself, because, thankfully, I make enough money that I’m able to,” says Nisar.

In addition to earning considerably more money, working as a relief vet has also given Nisar a better work-life balance than when she was a full-time employee, she says.

“I definitely am able to leave work at work and I don’t bring it home with me versus being a full-time vet,” she says. “I feel like I was consistently just thinking about my job when I wasn’t at work.”

She also has more flexibility to enjoy traveling and spending time with her own pets: two cats and her fiancé’s dog.

Though Nisar has enjoyed her experience as a relief vet so far, it’s not for everyone, she says.

“You are going into a brand new clinic most of the time and you’re meeting new people,” she says. “You have to be patient. You have to be flexible because you’re doing what they want you to do. You’re there to help them.”

Some days on the job are hard, and some cases can be emotional given the nature of working with sick animals, but Nisar enjoys the work and is happy to see all the cats and dogs she cares for, she says. 

“There’s a lot behind the scenes that you don’t see,” says Nisar. “We definitely don’t play with kittens and puppies all day. That’s a part of our job, but it is not our entire job.”

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