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Thread: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

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    Dizzy Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Hey ladies.

    It's been 4 months since I've moved away from the city and quit dancing. I've managed to find a serving job, but the hours just do not cut it. So I picked up another serving job. The hours are conflicting and still don't cut it. I don't drive, so I'm walking/bussing it around town in the cold looking for another steady job, calling places back, but it seems as though no one in town is hiring. I've gone through all of my savings - I'm broke, everything seems to be going downhill fast and I haven't got a clue what to do with my life. I'm really down in the dumps

    At the age of 25, I feel afraid. I feel like in the years of dancing, I haven't accomplished anything with my life. I have no real work experience to account for, I've always told myself "I'll go to school when I figure out what I want to do", "time is on my side", and let year after year go by. At the same time I told myself I cannot dance forever - soon my looks will fade and I will be trapped and disgruntled in the industry. Alcohol started becoming a nightly problem and looking back now, all the years seem to be a big blur. I never really learned how to budget properly when money wasn't an issue.

    Going back to dancing isn't an option for me. I feel like such a failure. I'm burdened with fears of financial security, getting old, and the future. I didn't want to be stuck dancing but I also don't want to be stuck at a McDonald's living pay cheque to pay cheque and not getting anywhere. I also have no clue what to do for a career ... I dream big... I want to be rich... maybe make a lucky entrepreneurial breakthrough... In any case I can't keep dreaming. My spirit is so broken right now. I don't know where to start or what to do. School would probably have to be an option, but I'm worried about making rent, bills, and food every month to begin that venture (and I'm not getting any younger).

    Just a late-night vent. I'm tired and distressed. This stress keeps me up at night. I thought I'd post here because some of you ladies may be feeling the same way being in the industry, or maybe some of you have "been there" and moved on to bigger and better things. I want to find some inspiration or wisdom to help me through this period in my life.

    Thank you for reading!

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Siiigh I'll be 25 in a few days =( I feel the same. I've been dancing long enough and have nothing to show.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    would you do anything else in the adult industry?

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Can you TRY dancing maybe once a week? Just for a little extra cash. I'm sure one good night will change your mood.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    I agree with dancing maybe once a week or however little you can handle without drinking. At this point, you need the money to pursue other things.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Just my own opinion, but ... with all of the background checking being performed by some 'straight' job employers these days, combined with a huge surplus of available qualified applicants for every halfway decent 'straight' job, getting involved in exotic dancing or camming or any other type of 'adult' industry work these days seems to automatically produce some sort of future negative risk toward future 'straight' job careers.

    Thus, in today's economy, the old scenario of girls choosing to dance or cam occasionally / part time, while also pursuing a college degree or also working a 'straight' job, no longer 'computes'. ANY amount of work as a dancer, camgirl or other 'adult' business capacity creates potential future negative risk, but occasional / part-time dancing or camming provides a lot LESS income than a serious full time effort would in exchange for the same amount of potential future negative risk.

    Therefore, under today's conditions, I would recommend that girls either 'jump in with both feet' and pursue dancing and/or camming as a full time effort yielding maximum earnings / savings / investments, or 'stay out of the water' so that the associated potential future negative risk won't be introduced in exchange for 'a few extra bucks'.

    In terms of entrepreneurial possibilities, 'it takes money to make money'. Retiring from dancing or camming at, say, age 35 with six figures worth of savings / investments behind you can open the door to all sorts of entrepreneurial possibilities. But without that self-financed capital at your disposal, the probability of an ex-dancer with no money saved up, with no noteworthy educational 'credentials', with no noteworthy 'straight' world professional job experience etc., successfully obtaining six figures worth of 3rd party financing for an entrepreneurial business venture is extremely low.

    As to age 25, I didn't even START working as a dancer or camgirl until I was older than that !!! I had obtained my college degree, my professional license, and had worked as a Respiratory Therapist for a few years before every walking into a strip club for the first time !!! However, those few years worth of working nights and weekends and holidays, contracting diseases from my hospital patients etc., in exchange for an after-tax paycheck that would barely cover my rent + groceries + a half-assed used car, taught me that my life was never going to improve much if I continued to work as a Respiratory Therapist.

    After abandoning my RT 'profession', and getting my head wrapped around the idea of working as a 'serious professional dancer' and camgirl night after night, week after week ... after 12 years worth of solid effort I had saved / invested enough of my earnings that I could afford to retire completely before age 40 !!! I was also able to buy two houses and send my son to a 'name' college ... none of which would have ever happened if I was living on an after-tax RT paycheck for those 12 years !

    But, as you have apparently already discovered, the point where most young dancers 'screw up' is by failing to treat their dancing as a serious professional career pursuit. They typically pi$$ away much of their earnings on luxury items and other non-essential spending, without saving and investing. They typically get 'lazy' about their work ethic, passing up opportunities to work extra nights / earn extra money because this month's rent and this semester's tuition is paid. They typically take a short term viewpoint, instead of viewing their dancing and camming opportunities in the same longer term light as a professional athlete ( i.e. make major money NOW because it the opportunity won't be there in a few years ). And just like some professional athletes, they may find themselves at age 35, with little or no money saved / invested, with their former high income potential rapidly declining, with little or no credentials / experience to provide successful entry into a different line of work.
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-13-2014 at 12:41 PM.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    You would probably qualify for OSAP or other funding/even some grants if you chose to go back to school, so I really urge you to look into that before writing school off as an option due to $$$.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Melonie, what's a good goal to shoot for if you want to retire around 40? Was most of your net worth at that point a result of wise investments or was a lot of it still liquid at that point?

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    ^^^ for starters, keep in mind that I started dancing in the mid '90's ... and was able to take advantage of economic situations which no longer exist today. At any rate ...

    Retiring at any age means having accumulated a 'nest egg' of sufficient size that the 'passive earnings' from that nest egg are capable of producing enough money to cover basic costs of living. So the starting point to answer your question is ... what sort of lifestyle are you willing to accept in retirement, and what areas are you willing to live in ? The answers to these questions more or less determines the amount of passive income generation you wlll need. In my own case, relocation to a country way south of the border to achieve a very low cost of living, and legally escape US taxes on my passive income, was a key factor in my being able to retire as early as I did.

    So based on the above, you wind up calculating that you'll need say $25k per year in passive income to fund your early retirement. This leads to the next step in the calculation ... projecting a 'reasonable' rate of after-tax earnings which your nest egg can be expected to produce. In my tax haven new country, that's about 6%. If I were still living in the USA, that's about 4.5% ( after US taxes claimed 25% of my raw earnings ).

    Next step is to back-calculate that in order to achieve a $25k annual passive income at a 6% average rate of return, you need about $416,000 worth of nest egg. At a 4.5% average rate of return after taxes, you need $555,000 worth of nest egg.

    From here some 'time value of money' math comes in to try and determine how many years of dancing are available, thus how much in annual after-tax dancing earnings needs to be saved, to achieve that size of nest egg. For a dancer who is age 20, there would be 20 years available to accumulate the nest egg. Simple math then says that $555,000 / 20 or $27,750 per year in annual savings would be necessary ... but since money saved in early years also earns passive income on its own, the actual number is closer to $24,000 per year. Of course if you are willing to expatriate, you can get by with ~20% less.

    Now for the 'kicker'. The $24,000 per year in necessary savings to be added to your nest egg is after-tax. So depending on where you live, winding up with $24k after taxes requires earning perhaps $32k before taxes. And that $32k is IN ADDITION to whatever other amount of money you're going to need to pay towards rent, utilities, car payments, health care, and every other 'cost of living'. So at minimum, this probably means needing to earn another $32k minimum to cover these costs of living, resulting in a minimum $64,000 annual pre-tax income = about $1300 per week. And that has to be earning an average of $1300 per week, week in and week out, over the entire 20 year dancing 'career'.

    And beyond that, this also means living a lifestyle that can actually be funded by the other $32k raw $25k after tax income ... which typically means driving an older car, renting a so-so apartment, shopping at 'big box' stores, living outside the 'popular' areas of the city, not blowing money on designer clothes or expensive vacations or anything that isn't a 'necessity', etc. This is actually the hardest part to achieve, since it doesn't take long before your subconscious starts telling you that you 'deserve' better. And there will undoubtedly also be stretches of time where you are unable to work, or forced to spend significant money on something unexpected. So, realistically speaking, to have a practical shot at being able to retire by age 40, a young dancer needs to position herself in a city / market where the ability to earn $2,000 a week = $100k per year pre-tax is a realistic possibility.

    In my own case, I started dancing much later in life ... thus I had to accumulate my nest egg over a 12-13 year period not 20. But I also had the opportunity to take advantage of some high yielding investments like gold, tech stocks, corporate 'junk' bonds etc. that, for a while, produced rates of return much higher than the typical 6% available today. Besides dancing in 'upscale' clubs, I was also able to get into featuring, video work, camming, my own pay website etc. which boosted my income potential significantly higher than the above example.

    Food for thought at least ...
    Last edited by Melonie; 01-16-2014 at 11:04 AM.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Makes perfect sense. ^

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    You could always go to beauty school to have a fun straight job to fill in the gaps while you still dance 1 night a week. Consider opening up a Roth IRA so you feel like you have something real to show for it.

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    Default Re: Quarter-Life Crisis... What Now?

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    Just my own opinion, but ... with all of the background checking being performed by some 'straight' job employers these days, combined with a huge surplus of available qualified applicants for every halfway decent 'straight' job, getting involved in exotic dancing or camming or any other type of 'adult' industry work these days seems to automatically produce some sort of future negative risk toward future 'straight' job careers.

    Thus, in today's economy, the old scenario of girls choosing to dance or cam occasionally / part time, while also pursuing a college degree or also working a 'straight' job, no longer 'computes'. ANY amount of work as a dancer, camgirl or other 'adult' business capacity creates potential future negative risk, but occasional / part-time dancing or camming provides a lot LESS income than a serious full time effort would in exchange for the same amount of potential future negative risk.

    Therefore, under today's conditions, I would recommend that girls either 'jump in with both feet' and pursue dancing and/or camming as a full time effort yielding maximum earnings / savings / investments, or 'stay out of the water' so that the associated potential future negative risk won't be introduced in exchange for 'a few extra bucks'.

    In terms of entrepreneurial possibilities, 'it takes money to make money'. Retiring from dancing or camming at, say, age 35 with six figures worth of savings / investments behind you can open the door to all sorts of entrepreneurial possibilities. But without that self-financed capital at your disposal, the probability of an ex-dancer with no money saved up, with no noteworthy educational 'credentials', with no noteworthy 'straight' world professional job experience etc., successfully obtaining six figures worth of 3rd party financing for an entrepreneurial business venture is extremely low.

    As to age 25, I didn't even START working as a dancer or camgirl until I was older than that !!! I had obtained my college degree, my professional license, and had worked as a Respiratory Therapist for a few years before every walking into a strip club for the first time !!! However, those few years worth of working nights and weekends and holidays, contracting diseases from my hospital patients etc., in exchange for an after-tax paycheck that would barely cover my rent + groceries + a half-assed used car, taught me that my life was never going to improve much if I continued to work as a Respiratory Therapist.

    After abandoning my RT 'profession', and getting my head wrapped around the idea of working as a 'serious professional dancer' and camgirl night after night, week after week ... after 12 years worth of solid effort I had saved / invested enough of my earnings that I could afford to retire completely before age 40 !!! I was also able to buy two houses and send my son to a 'name' college ... none of which would have ever happened if I was living on an after-tax RT paycheck for those 12 years !

    But, as you have apparently already discovered, the point where most young dancers 'screw up' is by failing to treat their dancing as a serious professional career pursuit. They typically pi$$ away much of their earnings on luxury items and other non-essential spending, without saving and investing. They typically get 'lazy' about their work ethic, passing up opportunities to work extra nights / earn extra money because this month's rent and this semester's tuition is paid. They typically take a short term viewpoint, instead of viewing their dancing and camming opportunities in the same longer term light as a professional athlete ( i.e. make major money NOW because it the opportunity won't be there in a few years ). And just like some professional athletes, they may find themselves at age 35, with little or no money saved / invested, with their former high income potential rapidly declining, with little or no credentials / experience to provide successful entry into a different line of work.
    Exception: The South is still behind on reporting you as working at a club. Just like MS was the last state to adopt a computerized jury pool....they were still using Rolodex cards in the 90's. The South is pretty good for being "behind the times". MO still doesn't have a RX monitoring program (to catch Dr. Shoppers). Most states in the South that do, don't use it. If you only work 1-2 nights you can get away with letting management know you will do your own taxes, but do them! Also you can take out loans/pell grant for school that will help you live as well until you find a vanilla job that can foot some of the financial burden.

    If you're badass like Melonie, you can do what she did, but most people aren't that badass , myself included. So, I realized I wasn't that badass and now school is my investment....won't be able to retire at 40, but I minimize debt by financing NOTHING and only buy what I can afford (school is the exception). Never leased a car, always paid cash, I take out a certain amount of cash and live on that for the week. Yes, sometimes I have to count pennies LOL, but it's a good practice.

    As Melonie said, 2/3 of professional athletes file bankruptcy within 5 years of retirement. Boxer Mayweather made $32 million for one fight. Obviously his sense of money is going to be skewed.
    "I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act." - Abraham Maslow

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