Home Stager Income and Lifestyle Changes Depend on Starting Point

Do you imagine yourself scrimping, saving and starving during your first and second year in business as a home stager?

While it´s true that you may have to make some adjustments in your lifestyle when you set out to be your own boss, it´s important to remember that it´s all relative to what you were earning before.

When I started my home staging business in 2002, I was living in a very expensive city and I had just come from a career where I was making more than $100,000 per year. In a situation like that, with those variables, it is almost impossible to maintain your previous lifestyle and income level in year one – whether you´re talking about staging or any other new business.

In that first year, I made about $40,000 as a home stager. Since that was about the same as the median household income in the US, and I was earning that in my first year of a new business on my own, it was pretty good. I also hadn´t yet figured out how to properly charge for my home staging services, something I teach my students in the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program, so they can have a better first year than I did.

Given that the average minimum wage in the US is about $7/hour, most people who earn $20 an hour figure they´re doing pretty well. If you´re used to making about $20 an hour, you´ll probably make as much in a single day of home staging as you currently earn working full time for an entire week (likely doing something less enjoyable). If you´ll be leaving a full time job where you make $50 an hour (or $100,000 a year), sure it will take awhile to get back to that level but then again, you won´t have all of the typical costs of being an employee in that salary range.

After all, you won´t have to worry about many expenses including: Buying lunch every day, dry cleaning, taxis, parking, maintaining an expensive wardrobe, manicures, hiring a nanny, gardener, house cleaner, etc. (As an exec you don´t have time for these things but your schedule is more flexible as a home stager.), takeout dinners and expensive morning coffees.

Essentially, if you´re wondering if starting a home staging business will mean major lifestyle changes, it depends on your previous financial situation and where you live.

But of course there´s more to "lifestyle" than how much money you earn. Many people earn less, but are way happier because they have a more balanced lifestyle working in their own business. Many find, like I do, that their actual cost of living goes down because they don´t have to buy all the things that are required of a high-paying career in an office tower.

Above all else, remember that the more you invest in your learning about the proper set up and pricing of a home staging business, and in marketing your services, the more you will get out of it!

For more financial advice about starting a home staging business, download Debra Gould´s free report Ask Staging Diva: Can I grow a home staging business in a depressed economy?