What It's Really Like Working as a Psychic Reader (Sarah's Story)

Sarah is 43, lives just outside Manchester, and has been a phone reader for almost three years. Before that, she worked retail. Eleven years of late shifts, awkward managers and aching feet.

She agreed to talk through what the job is actually like. Not the polished version. The real one.

"I'd read tarot since I was about sixteen," she says. "My nan taught me. But I never thought of it as something I could earn from. I assumed you had to be running a shop on the high street with a beaded curtain."

She came across a phone reader application by accident, scrolling job sites at midnight after a particularly miserable closing shift. She filled it out before she could talk herself out of it.

"My first ever call was a lady from Cardiff asking about her son's apprenticeship. I remember my hands shaking. I thought I'd freeze. But she just started talking, and I started reading, and twenty minutes later she said, 'Thank you, love, you've really helped me.' That was it. I was hooked."

Sarah works 7pm to midnight, four nights a week. The kids are in bed. She makes a cup of tea. She logs on.

"Some nights are quiet and I get bits of the house tidied between calls. Other nights it's back-to-back and I'm absolutely buzzing by the end. There's no in-between, really."

"It's not all light and easy," she admits. "You get people calling who are genuinely struggling. Bereavement. Bad relationships. Sometimes you're the first person who's properly listened to them in weeks."

She says you have to learn to hold space without taking it home with you. "I light a candle when I log off. Silly little thing. But it's my way of saying, work's done now."

"I won't pretend every week is the same. Some weeks it's £400, some weeks it's £700. Christmas was wild - well over a grand the week before. Average it out and I'm earning more than my old retail job, in fewer hours, in my own house."

"Not in a million years. I see my kids in the morning. I do the school run. I'm there for tea. And then I work in the evenings doing something I'm actually good at. Why would anyone go back from that?"

"Just apply. That's it. You'll know within your first few calls whether it's for you. And honestly? Most people who give it a proper go end up loving it."

👉 If Sarah's story sounds like the life you want, apply to become a reader at TMF Media today.