I was homeless & bouncing from job-to-job after tragedy hit… now I earn £800k a YEAR with my VERY rude business
AFTER being homeless and overwhelmed with tragedy, a business savvy woman has turned an adult store into a booming trade.
Tami Rose from Mississippi, US, opened Romantic Adventures in 2009 and has since gone on to make £800,000 a year.
Despite lots of small shopfronts closing due to the retail apocalypse that was heightened during covid – Tami’s business has tripled.
While her close friends casted judgement, the Navy veteran took a chance on the sex toy business, which has now flourished.
Tami told the Daily Star: “I am old enough to know better but young enough to still do it anyway.”
She soon had a knack for the industry and after her first year of trading she turned over £408,000.
She followed that up with more than £61,000 profit the year after.
However, the woman has not always enjoyed success and admitted she struggled in her formative years.
She joined the Navy at 17 because she couldn’t afford further education and it was the best way for her to secure a college degree.
She said: “My family was blue collar and they did their best for me but I wanted to handle my own college bills.
“I actually got a college education and a year of law school, which was long enough to find out it wasn’t for me.
“While I value my time at Baylor I think corporate life would equal death.
“That is probably how I wound up in the sex toy business and loving it so much.”
Tragically, Tami lost “the love of her life” after only two-and-a-half months of marriage during her service.
It inspired her to become a religious petty officer in the Navy, which involved informing widows their spouses had died in combat.
After her time in the forces, she opened a spa business that was later destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
She said: “I didn’t go straight from the Navy into the adult business.
“I actually bounced around through a few sales jobs then got my certification in massage therapy.
“[This was] another contributing factor in my comfort with the adult business and the ability to teach people about their anatomy in a calm respectful way.
“It was a tough few years but no matter the economy or the bouts of conservatism the South occasionally struggles with, sex always sells.”
Tami dated a man who owned Romantic Adventures where she later decided to work.
While her boyfriend was ashamed of running a sex toy shop, she was determined to make it work.
Eventually, she took it over in 2009 and turned it into a thriving hustle that raked in annual profits of £800,000.
She said: “In Mississippi, the only acceptable things for a good southern woman to earn money at is education or something in the medical field.
“But in both those fields they don’t make as much as their male counterparts.
“I was already used to being outside of the norm as a holistic practitioner so sex toys didn’t seem like that far to jump.”
The businesswoman admitted she lost friends in the process but it all turned out for the best.
She said: “I have paid a high social cost but the friends I do have are true blue and don’t worry about making me fit into either round or square ped holes.
“They just let me fill the Tami-shaped hole in their heart.”