The Broke Travel Social Worker

Am I actually broke? No. Do I feel broke? Yes!

Let’s be honest, the biggest appeal of travel social work is the money. Being a travel social worker you can make $10,000-$15,000+ a month AFTER TAXES and that was the biggest selling point I emphasized daily to those considering the field. But making that much money creates a dependency on having high income due to lifestyle inflation. When your income increases in such a significant way it’s very easy to perceive the expense of convenience as normal.

Some may have planned better for the long term than I did, but this was “new money” and I struggled to manage it.

I have been very open and honest about bad financial decisions I made when I first started traveling for work. Though there were bad decisions there were also a lot of good decisions.

I’m thankful for the season of travel social work and the role it played in my life, but it’s time for me to restructure my finances post travel social work. To be honest, this is an emotional adjustment. I went from auto pay on all bills, saving hella, worldwide travel multiple times a year, to stalking our budget weekly to make sure the math maths and squeezing in weekend trips. I’ll say this a million times- I am thankful for my husband. Having two incomes made the transition out of travel social work hurt less, and without him I’m not sure where I’d be financially.

Dominican Republic

Edinburgh, Scotland

Johannesburg, South Africa

Dublin, Ireland

I’ve always managed our finances and curated our budget to reflect the lives we wanted to live. So, being more in tune with our budget isn’t life changing, but the freedom of travel social work money is deeply missed.

As I reflect on our budget through a new lens I’m looking deeper into areas that I should have been more concerned about. Specifically, student loans. I previously signed up for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), but now that it’s time to renew my IDR plan I checked in on my progress. I currently have 9 out of 120 payments that qualify toward forgiveness. I was a travel social worker for four years and any payments made during that time do not qualify. Even though I worked within nonprofit medical facilities, my employer was a for profit agency. I was so focused on the short term income that it completely overshadowed my long term financial planning. I didn’t even think about PSLF again until last week.

This PSLF realization was a blow to my heart that I wasn’t prepared to take. There may be social workers who are aware of this information- I was not one of them. If you are reading this post and learning this information for the first time I hope that it helps you in some way.

If I had to flash back to November 2021 I can honestly say I would still choose to become a travel social worker, but I wouldn’t stay as long and I would have a better exit plan.

Deciding to leave travel social work was inevitable, but I wanted it to look different.

However, what’s done is done and I can’t cry over spilled milk. As I navigate my finances post travel social work I am being more vigilant, intentional, and striving to make better decisions.

Did you transition out of travel social work? What was that like for you financially?