
Wether you are using stripping to get ahead or go to college, or have been a dancer and moved forward with your life to a "real career", I want to hear your success stories.
Heres Mine:
I moved to Vegas about 5 years ago with $200.00 in my pocket, a backpack full of clothes and not much else. I left everything behind, I know it was risky but I was tired of my life. I was staying at the WILD WILD WEST (a scary hotel to say the least) until I was able to rent a room.
I got into dancing and camming, and havent looked back since!! I now have a steadyish lol income, a beautiful condo and my two doggies! I feel like I have accomplished so much in the past 5 years. Everytime I drive past the wild wild west I always remember where I came from and how much progress I have made. Thinking about those times where I cried in my hotel room because I didn't know what to do, or where I would end up always keeps me motivated.
Mine is a work in progress.. I moved out of my parents house at 17 and started dancing as soon as I turned 18. Already hard into drugs when I started dancing, I went through years of bullshit and drug abuse, and it has taken me a few years to get it together and realize my potential.
At this point, I am saving serious money, working towards setting myself up for my future with hopes of retirement and opening a business. I am also in college, getting my degree and most importantly, am 100% sober.
I have realized the potential of this business and am working six days a week putting money away. I have also realized that I LOVE the business. I love entertaining people and I love being in control of my life.
For myself, I am thankful to have gotten into the business, because I have learned sooooo much. I wouldn't necessarily promote the business for others, b/c you do sort of get thrown through the ringer, but it has turned into a blessing for me.
I then got enough money to live week by week at the local Motel 6. I did that until I got enough money to rent my own apt! I had saved up ALL the money I needed, and then someone stole it, all. I was DEVASTATED, but, I worked harder and made it all back and got my place!!
That was 13 years ago and I never have stopped dancing but I did learn web design and now run a very succesful web design company AND dance. I love it! I have a 9y/o lil man and things are wonderful!
Great thread! :)
^^^^^^^^^
Ditto :)
I quit my graduate program because I knew I didn't want to teach writing--I wanted to be a writer. So I started stripping and started using my free time to write.
So, the money I made stripping is allowing me to shift gears into a career that is in alignment with my talents and my life purpose.
I enrolled in a college down here and bought myself a new car and put what I could fit in my trunk and left. I had a three bedroom apartment when I left and my mother was supposed to keep my things for me until I got settled but my furniture got divved up among friends and relatives and ALL of the clothes I had there (like thousands and thousands of dollars worth) got stolen by her neighbor's teenage daughter when they moved. Fuck it! It's just stuff.
To be honest I had a rough time down here for a while, I feel behind in school and had two shitty relationships back to back but right now I really need to get back to where I used to be mentally when dancing was freeing and empowering.
I did get back in school and just got my 1st degree Monday of last week! Now I am enrolled in University and evern though I plan on working full time I still want to dance at least one night a week so I can save up for the deposit on a home and start a retirement fund and also do some traveling!
But my success story: Getting out of my crappy small town and moving to a city where I knew no one and making it against all odds!
I got into dancing and camming, and havent looked back since!! I now have a steadyish lol income, a beautiful condo and my two doggies! I feel like I have accomplished so much in the past 5 years. Everytime I drive past the wild wild west I always remember where I came from and how much progress I have made. Thinking about those times where I cried in my hotel room because I didn't know what to do, or where I would end up always keeps me motivated.
This is the most inspiring thing I've read on here in a long time. :) Good for you, and thank you for sharing!
At the same time a new club opened up. I decided to take a shot at at being an exotic dancer, in hopes of earning enough money quickly to wipe out my divorce debts and actually being able to save money towards my son's future college education. I was pretty successful at this from the beginning. I then took advantage of a few opportunities to migrate to 'better' clubs, and subsequently expand ( pun intended ) into featuring, magazines, an adult website, etc.
After about 12 years, I managed to not only pay off my debts and buy a house, but also to save up enough money to fund my son's college education, and also to save / invest enough additional money to allow me to 'retire' from the exotic dancing / adult entertainment world.
Now that my son is away at college, I had the choice of continuing to live in my home state of NY and return to being a Respiratory Therapist ( or some other straight job) in order to pay all of the taxes due on my 'passive' investment income as well as the taxes due on a straight job paycheck, or to circumvent the taxes and live rather comfortably on my 'passive' income alone. I chose the latter, and am now on a 'permanent vacation' way south of the US border ... where up to $91k per year in 'passive' income is now free of US and NY taxes, and where the local cost of living is FAR less expensive than it was in NY. I will also add that my son loves to visit on semester breaks ( since I now live within relatively easy driving distance of Cancun LOL - 'hey, I thought you came down here to visit ME !' )
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As for me, dancing has helped me pay for college, pay off my car, put a down payment on a house, and start paying off credit card debt. Now I am teaching English as a Second Language at a middle school here in town. It is in an at-risk, 70% poverty ridden school, where over half the kids are either involved in gangs or have family invovled in gangs, or are illegal immigrant kids. This is what I have always wanted to do, so I am glad that dancing has gotten me here. :)
At the same time a new club opened up. I decided to take a shot at at being an exotic dancer, in hopes of earning enough money quickly to wipe out my divorce debts and actually being able to save money towards my son's future college education. I was pretty successful at this from the beginning. I then took advantage of a few opportunities to migrate to 'better' clubs, and subsequently expand ( pun intended ) into featuring, magazines, an adult website, etc.
After about 12 years, I managed to not only pay off my debts and buy a house, but also to save up enough money to fund my son's college education, and also to save / invest enough additional money to allow me to 'retire' from the exotic dancing / adult entertainment world.
Now that my son is away at college, I had the choice of continuing to live in my home state of NY and return to being a Respiratory Therapist ( or some other straight job) in order to pay all of the taxes due on my 'passive' investment income as well as the taxes due on a straight job paycheck, or to circumvent the taxes and live rather comfortably on my 'passive' income alone. I chose the latter, and am now on a 'permanent vacation' way south of the US border ... where up to $91k per year in 'passive' income is now free of US and NY taxes, and where the local cost of living is FAR less expensive than it was in NY. I will also add that my son loves to visit on semester breaks ( since I now live within relatively easy driving distance of Cancun LOL - 'hey, I thought you came down here to visit ME !' )
~
Wow Melonie! I am sure I speak for many when I say I hope that one day I can accomplish what you have in your career! You are one amazing woman.
All of you are!
It has been such a hard time lately but I am trying to be more positive, and this is just what I needed. All of you are so inspiring! Ty for all of your replies and I hope there are many more to come.
Right now I'm trying to save 50k to start a restaurant. I've meet a lot of interesting people dancing (dancers and customers) and they've definitely brightened my outlook on life.
I was kicked out of my highschool when I was 17 because the school found out that my legal guardian (my mother, who was a mentally unstable alcoholic and had extreme depression) had moved out of the state without me.
I was alone in my city, working 2 minumum wage jobs and was forced to drop out of highschool which has made the entire college process really hard for me. I would have panic attacks almost daily. I had considered many things for survival such as prostituting myself if I ever had to. I never did.
Fast foward to moving to Miami.
I was a 19 year-old bartender in South Beach (Miami). I worked at a really slow bbq restaraunt and bar and made about $400 a week, I worked 5 days a week and had to take a two hour bus ride to get to work everyday.
My mother had chose to cut herself off of all the meds she was perscribed to and was drinking heavily. She was mentally and physically abusive towards me. I was living with her at the time.
I dreamed of being in college like most of my high school friends were. While many of them were already messing up their college careers by partying and slacking off, all I wanted was a chance to be in college. I wanted to study medicine, maybe even oncology since I had lost many people to cancer. My mother knew about my goals and never assisted me, she never even told me she was proud.
One morning I woke up to the sight of my mom rummaging through my purse. My wallet was in one of her hands and I had already suspected her of stealing from me in the past. I would have loaned her money if she would ask, but we barely spoke to one another. In my half-asleep state, I mumbled "bitch" at her. I woke up to her hitting my head and scratching my eyes, it hurt so bad my eyes were burning. I cried all morning until I went to work. I felt so low that day. If I had any $ in the bank whatsoever, I would have left that day. I then vowed to myself that I would never, ever let myself be in this kind of situation again. Thats when I put two and two together and said "I'm gonna strip and never rely on anybody again" to myself. I went to work that day (bartending at a shitty place), quit two days later, and auditioned at the club I work at today.
Anyways, now I am 20 and I'm in community college, I want to be a dentist. Before I started dancing I wanted to study journalisim, but now that I work for myself I dont think I could work 9-5 office style ever!
I have a car, I live in Miami and take frequent trips to travel destinations in Florida. I now have a fulfilling social life and no one is beating the shit out of me! :D
I take a lot of road trips out-of-state, like to Savannah (one of my fav cities) and to New England (Where I grew up). My dream now is to get accepted into Tufts (or another equally elite Boston school) and one day own enough rental properties to live off of. I also have a pooch that I love to death and a loving man who treats me like a queen.
My self-esteem is through the roof because of dancing. I love myself :). Sometimes I even feel like I'm on the brink of something special (does that make sense? I don't know what that something is, but I definatly feel it).
i wouldnt reccomend dancing to everyone, but its totally changed my life for the better ;D
Oh yeah, awesome thread idea
I was an elementary school teacher, until I couldn’t afford to eat. My paycheck just barely covered rent, car payment and insurance. I fell into dancing with the idea of “just until I finish graduate school and pay off Visa….” That was almost a decade ago. Since then, I have embraced the industry and all the opportunities that it offers smart, business-savvy women who are willing to stand up to the societal stereotypes.
During the dot.com craze, I was making great money and didn’t know what to do with it. The more I made, the more I spent, with most of it going towards rent in California. By 2002 I was drowning in consumer debt and filed for bankruptcy. I identified my mistakes, vowed to never make them again, and began my personal journey towards financial literacy.
In January 2004 I took the Naked Assets DancerWealth sales training class in Las Vegas. Although there have been several copy-cats, Naked Assets is the Original Stripper Sales Training School founded by Adam Sternberg that has been featured in Playboy Magazine, 20/20, and CityLife Magazine. Taking the DancerWealth course was the turning point of my dancing career. Afterwards, I began to experience massive success at closing lapdance and champagne room sales. DancerWealth also inspired me to begin my own journey into personal development. I started with the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Three years later I began blogging about how to be a successful stripper on Myspace. I even coined the term “SuperStripper” to describe the mindset and process of running a stripping business. The blog blossomed into a fabulous community of like-minded entertainers and those who aspired to become a SuperStripper.
In May of 2008, I assumed majority ownership of Naked Assets. In addition to the original DancerWealth course, I created the DancerWise and DancerVictory courses to coach entertainers towards SupperStripperdom. My personal goal is to continue dancing until I am Financially Free. This means that I have enough passive income from my investments to cover my living expenses. Becoming a SuperStripper has been a life changing experience for me. When I'm old and bleached blonde, I'll reflect on my stripper experience with fond memories and positive thoughts. Despite the social stigma of being "a stripper" I revel in proving them wrong!
(I am bumping this thread because I am loving all the stories here and would love to hear more!)
:)
My Mom has been pushing and pushing and pushing for me to go back to school, but I had a bit of an epiphany the other week. I decided that I didn't want to do it, and I wasn't going to.
Now that I know all the money I make isn't going into some savings account my Mom has for me (of which I have no information at all, no account number, nothing) which will be spent on tuition, all of the sudden my earnings have skyrocketed. I want to fix my credit, and get my own place again, and I want to have nice things in it, and I want to travel. So I've already planned a trip to London next month to meet up with my boyfriend, and I'm looking at apartments in the area.
I feel like now that I can do what I want with my money, all of the sudden I've become noticeably happier and more motivated. I've always wanted to travel extensively, and while I've managed a small bit of it until now, I've realized I can make enough money to go abroad if I want to. And I can have my own wonderful place to come back to whenever I want. I'm feeling more optimistic about it than I have in a long time.
This was the start of something bigger I began doing dancer costumes and opened a business what seemed like fun turned into something that ended up changing my whole life and way of thinking. 20 years later we still sell exotic dancer costumes, bikinis, and have another site we are working on for dancers /industry. This business opened up a whole new way of thinking for me and i would never change a thing.
Its still funny to me that people will go oh you used to be a dancer then give you that dopey look yes i was a dancer and i would do it again the best thing that i ever stumbled into.
I have had many friends in the industry that have been able to go to school, take great care of there children, open businesses that they would never have been able to do without dancing.I may be off the stage now but never out of the industry.
Best advice do what makes you happy and keep your money and your men separate
This business was a tremendous help for me as well.I won't go into details,but if it wasn't for it,I probably would have not made it in this country,having been here very young and without family.
Anyways......for some ODD, anti-intuitive reason, the time I spent dancing CURED ME (of that anger anyhow). I felt (and still feel) that I, more than anything, just UNDERSTOOD men now. I could let their stares and comments on the street or at my "real" job slide without popin off.
Who knew?
Great thread.
I started dancing at 21 in my 3rd year of college. I had been working a low paying retail job and was still living at my parents' house because I couldn't afford my own place... it was horrible, they were always fighting and my dad and I didn't get along. Having two jobs was killing my grades in school, so I eventually decided, fuck it, I'm going to waitress at a strip club. They hired me, and two months later I started stripping and was able to afford my own apartment with roommates.
I bought all my own furniture, bought a new laptop and a desk for school, and graduated a semester early with awesome grades because my schedule was so much lighter than before.
Now I'm kicking those roommates out, and I have enough money to pay all my own bills and have my own place all to myself, for the first time. It's the best feeling ever. Dancing really puts you through the ringer, puts you face to face with your strengths and weaknesses. But it can give you so much freedom -- I feel like a lot of us here have gotten to places in our lives that it would have taken years and years to reach otherwise.
Before I was a stripper I was completely broke, continuously getting deeper into debt, barely being able to afford gas to put in my shitty car to get to work and pretty miserable when I was at work. There was no way I'd be able to pay for school, I didn't have anyone to rely on financially to help me if there was an emergency, and I was going nowhere in life.
I've worked my way up with stripping. I first started at a peepshow, which didn't pay great but it paid well (does that make sense?). I was able to use this money to buy myself a better car, which I now use for working bachelor parties. I've used that money to save up for an apartment close to where I plan on going to school and buy a laptop. I now also work at a club in the area I'm moving to, so I'm set up to go back to school and be financially taken care of! I've also made great friends, gained confidence, gotten really good at speaking my mind (this was a huge weakness for me), and my body has gotten much stronger too.
The very best thing though, is the assurance that even in tough times I will manage.
I started dancing back when I was 19. I actually come from a great family and we are all very close. My boyfriend in high school's mom was a stripper back when he was growing up and she just made it sound so fun I wanted to try it. I was taking 43 units in college and going year round to get it done. I came out to Vegas with some friends since my family had a home out here. Back in 1999 you could dance at clubs with alcohol under 21 you just needed a wrist band. I got hired at Cheetah's, danced for 3 nights and LOVED it so I started to come out every week or two to dance. As soon as I was done with school I told my parents that I wanted to put off my job and move out to Vegas to dance. Where I am from in Orange County that was very irregular but I have awesome parents and when I showed them the numbers and benefits they both agreed it was much smarter than the route I was originally going to go. I was also very lucky that because of dancing, I was able to spend a lot of time with my grandfather for the last 2 years of his life and after he did pass in 2001 I bought their Vegas home to keep it in the family.
Dancing has allowed me to have ZERO debt with the exception of my mortgage on my home in Vegas which is almost paid off at this point. I paid cash for all my vehicles, all my toys, my second home in So Cal. I was able to take 21 months off and travel, be involved in a couple of businesses that provide me great extra income, fully fund my retirement, and make some amazing friends along the way. I was also very lucky that from early on, my family was very good at teaching us to be financially responsible, so from day 1 of dancing I have always put at least the first 10% aside for myself. For most of my dancing career I have saved 25% off the top.
I don't dance very much anymore, in fact tomorrow will be my first day back in 3 months, but I miss it and my husband is out of town so now is the perfect time to call up my regulars and spend a couple nights shaking my thing.
That was only six months ago.