Can I realistically earn 4000? pcm?

[Morphea]

Hello girls. This is a really great forum. You are very patient at answering the questions of all the newbies and I really hope you will have some patience with me as well even though I am sure you have seen dozens of questions like mines  .
I am a stripper and I am simply not making the kind of money I thought I would make as one. My average is 2,500? pcm. I would like to earn around 4,000? pcm (possibly more but I don?t want to get my hopes too high in this economy). I really appreciate how you ladies seem to be honest and realistic here, so please tell me if that is a realistic goal in this economy. I have read enough on this forum to know that how much you can make is determined by different factors, so here is some further info about my situation hoping that it can help you give me some more specific advice.
1.   Because I am currently focused only on earning as much as I can in order to buy a house and put away some savings, start a pension plan etc., I am willing to move pretty much anywhere in the UK to work. It seems that many of you work in London. The golden stripper rule is to avoid London at all costs, because there are too many girls working and because the City is so expensive that most of your income is spent for simple survival. Is it the complete opposite with escorting and is London a better place to go because it is larger and therefore is full of customers? But isn't London a very expensive place to live?
2.   I try to keep my expenses down so I share a flat with another girl (who is not in this industry). I would houseshare anywhere I went so obviously I cannot do incalls at my place. I also do not currently have the money to rent a place to do incalls, so I suppose incalls in general seem to be out of the picture. The thing that scares me about escorting is that from my outsider?s point of view it is a profession that is really FULL of expenses. Cabs (I don't have a car), renting an incall place etc? I wouldn?t want to end up spending half of the (idealistic) 4,000? I earn on these things and end up bringing home exactly the same amount of money I earn as a stripper if not less. Do you have any tips about how to budget/keep this whole thing under control?
3.   There are two things I refuse to do: the first is to take pictures of my face and post them on the internet (therefore my customers will only ever see my body when booking online) and the second is to work without condoms. I won?t do oral without condoms etc. How much do you think these conditions are going to hurt my earning potential?

Thank you so much for your time and help ladies 

[Cat_BBW]

With regard to your question 3) neither of these should hurt your earning potential, always stick to your boundaries.

Is the desired ?4000pcm before or after tax? If before tax, then don't forget you will need to stash about a quarter of it away for when you get your tax bill. That leaves you ?3000pcm - is that enough? And if you aren't doing incalls, your earning potential is limited.

[sammy s]

Your tax bill will be pretty hefty each year if you're earning 4k a month. Think that would mean you would have to also pay VAT. If your bank decides to alert HMRC about your substantial earnings and they find out you aren't declaring the money for tax then they can and will issue you with an enormous tax bill to pay from what they estimate your earnings are.
I've seen this happen to two escorting friends and they both had to declare bankruptcy. You could of course just stash your cash and not pay it into the bank, but this means it would be impossible for you to ever get a mortgage and you could also be robbed.

If you are planning on paying tax then you'll have to factor these costs into your budget. 4k a month should be do-able as many escorts can easily earn 1k per week (you could do that buy only getting one hour long booking per day. But the market is unreliable and some weeks you might be very busy and some weeks you might get absolutely nothing).  It all depends on how desirable you are to your market though. There is so much competition out there and the escorting world seems to be massively slowing down for many of us due to the recession and debts that many clients probably now have.

Not having an incall place would be an issue as outcalls are never as popular. Could you do incalls from hotel rooms perhaps? Many escorts on here do that and find it works for them. As for things like taxi fares etc, you could always charge a bit extra for outcalls to cover these costs, or you could use public transport either there or back.

I've worked in London, Edinburgh and the midlands and I'd say that I earned great money in London, decent money in Edinburgh and hardly anything in the midlands. That's not to say that others can't do better or worse in these places than me. Again it all boils down to how desirable you are (and I don't just mean how attractive you are. Clients also want someone who is articulate, intelligent and confident normally. And then there's always the niches they they look for such as big boobs/ petite or BBW/ girl next door or porn star type etc).

Good luck with it all and I'm sure if you have your head screwed on and make sure you're safe etc that you can reach your targets.

[Taylor]

you could earn that but do you really want to be seeing like ten men a day 7 days a week...

when i first started in 2009 i made alot, i got addicted but i was getting so ill working all hours and seeing randoms, you have to be such a strong person. as sammy explained you're tax bill will me massive... just bare that in mind x

[Ieaio]

4k is doable sure

[AA]

3.   There are two things I refuse to do: the first is to take pictures of my face and post them on the internet (therefore my customers will only ever see my body when booking online) and the second is to work without condoms. I won?t do oral without condoms etc. How much do you think these conditions are going to hurt my earning potential?

I don't think those choices will have a negative impact on your earnings. There's plenty of girls out there who have the same rules and are still busy. But you really need to think about the rates you're going to charge, you may find it tough going if you're planning to charge very high end rates, say 250.00ph+, for essentially vanilla services. I only say that because there are plenty of escorts out there who are happy to show their face and offer OWO and often at very reasonable prices, so you need to make sure you're in a position to compete. The best thing to do is to look at what similar girls are charging in your area and price yourself accordingly. Good luck. 

[Morphea]

Cat_BBW: Whether 3000pcm after taxes is enough largely depends on what I have to spend in order to earn it. If I have to live in London where even breathing is hugely expensive then it?s not really what I was hoping for. Same if I have to spend a lot on cabs etc. It?s not that I don?t want to do incalls as much as it is that I need to find a way of doing them that is affordable and under control, but I think Sammy s suggested a good idea!
Sammmy s: Thank you so much for the hotel incalls idea. I hadn?t thought about it at all, and it sounds like it would definitely be a lot more practical than renting another place etc. I will definitely look into that.
Is the money in London so great that it actually covers basic expenses and still remains substantial? Because for example I have stripper in Edinburgh and even though the earning potential was not as high as it is in a top club in London, the simple fact that everything was so much more affordable meant that I got to keep a lot more money than I would have if I had lived in London.
I absolutely do plan to pay taxes. I don?t mind expenses as long as I am earning enough to feel that I am building my future, saving for a house, not fretting about paying the bills etc.
I try to stay safe but I do admit that getting into escorting currently does feel like the most terrifying and unsafe thing I have ever done. Because the point of a strip club is that you check in, work surrounded by other people, bodyguards etc. and then leave and you don?t have to worry about anything except for paying your own house fee. When you are an escort it seems like you have to keep track of a thousand things from your hotel bookings to your website to making sure you are safe when you are around clients, to the dozens of expenses etc. I do want to do this to build a better and more financially secure future for myself in a mature way, but I can?t deny that at least right now it does feel like a huge amount of responsibility

Taylor and rhonasg: you also bring up good points. I mean when you go past the 32k bracket your taxes do get huge. But if you are making 6000 pcm like rhonasg (I never hoped it would be possible to make that much in my wildest dreams) then I think it is also quite worth it.

[happyhappyjoyjoy]

I am an outcall only girl and I am luck if I see one a day I find that when I book a hotel for incalls I can see a lot more people so outcall only really kills your earning potential. The amount of phonecalls I get with disappointed guys as I cant accommodate is phenomenal! Hoping to save enough for a deposit on an incall place.

[LithyBony]

Yep. I started doing incalls this week for the first time ever and the difference is immense. I can see how some girls could make a good amount of money doing it. But with outcalls it's really hit or miss

[Wife4rent]

you could earn that but do you really want to be seeing like ten men a day 7 days a week...

I think you would be earning far more than ?3,500 a month if you were doing that amount of work - 10 X ?70 x 7 = ?3,500 per week.

?4,000+ a month, after tax, is quite easily achievable if you work long hours 7 days a week, but as others have said, you will burn out, so doing it for 3-4 months you could put a lot of money away for savings and some for a well needed holiday.

If you are young enough or have the energy go for it, but have a target to aim for and a holiday destination in mind.

I will keep to my 2-3 days a week...

Sarah x x x

[catlady85]

Hello!

I've been stripping on and off for about 5 years now, and let me tell you, it's harder now than ever before to rake in the big money. Lots of clubs, lots of girls and less men visiting. So.. it is harder than ever to earn money. ?2.5k a month is not bad, but it is possible to earn much much more. I do not, nor have I ever, lived in London so you don't need to live there to do well. You can do well in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

As was mentioned, if you earn ?4k a month, you will be in the higher tax bracket. However, it is possible to sidestep this by writing off expenses. Taxi costs are included in this, and if you work from home seeing clients, then rent/bills can be partially written off as well, and this will reduce your tax bill. You only start paying VAT if you earn more then ?80,000 a year.

I keep a budget planner and I stick to it to make sure I don't spend too much. I make sure I spend no more than x amount a month on make up, or on clothes, or on train faire. Some of my cost I can pass on to clients, such as travel or specific outfits, but you have to spend money to make money. Once you've been doing it a while you will figure out t he best way of managing money for you.

I don't do oral without condoms and it's never affected my earning.

[xw5]

The current VAT threshold is ?79k per year and it's turnover - the raw income from all your business activities - that counts, not your profit as with income tax.

You really don't want to have to charge VAT, so that puts a limit on how much it is sensible to earn.

[catlady85]

Ah, I did not know that.

Yes. My partner has to pay VAT on his business and it caused his rates to go up, which affected his business (ironically)

[Morphea]

Ok girls to sum up your last few posts it looks like earning 4,000? (unless I do a thorough job of detracting expenses) might actually hurt my savings because it puts me in the tax bracket which takes a lot off my income. So you suggest that earning around 3,500? (1000? more than what I am earning now) is actually quite enough? The point is that I being very young I don't exactly know how much one should put away in savings. I am bad at budgeting XD

[xw5]

With income tax, you can earn about ?10k without paying any income tax. Then the next ?32k-ish of taxable income is taxed at 20%. Then the next 120k-ish is taxed at 40%.

So once you become a higher rate tax payer, only a bit of your income is taxed at 40%, not the whole lot.

NI means it's a bit more complicated than that, but basically don't worry about getting into the higher rate band for income tax.

Saving money is simple. Don't spend more than you really have to, and save what's left.