So, one of the things I do to save money is I provide the haircuts in the Nagle5 household. From trimming Buttercup's length to keeping Superman as close to his former military haircut as I'll let him be, I do it all. Why? Well, frankly, for the short hair these men like, it was darned silly to pay $15 a pop for them to get their hair cut every 4-5 weeks. Assuming each male gets his haircut every five weeks at $15/each, I am saving us $468. Even after subtracting the cost of the Wahl clippers at $40 or so (I've bought two packages in 6 years), it is clear to see that I am saving the family a ton of money. Were the very first hair cuts I did perfect? Nope...I started when the boys were little and, frankly, didn't care and I've gotten better over the years. Fortunately for me, Superman has curly hair and that hid a multitude of sins while I learned how to do what he liked. Now I can get all three of them done in less than an hour...no worries about scheduling or stopping at the barber, we just figure out a day in the upcoming week and tell the boys I'll be cutting hair this day if you want a haircut. An easy way to save roughly $2600 in 6 years, don't you think?
For Buttercup, she doesn't want her hair cut, so a trim to cut off dead ends every six months (or the oh-so-drastic 3 inches we did last fall) is pretty much all she wants...again, I can do this. No, I don't cut my own hair, but I do keep my bangs trimmed and color my own hair. For us, I invested in a expensive hair-cutting scissors ($30!) that do the trick beautifully. Again, I've had these scissor 5 years now and, because they're not used in a professional setting, they're still cutting perfectly. When you figured bang trims cost roughly $5 each time and must be done every 5 weeks or so, I'm saving $52 a year on trims, not to mention the convenience of being able to do it right when I need to. I think Buttercup's only had 3 -4 haircuts by someone other than me...I don't even have any idea how much I would be spending on "girl" haircuts.
Back in the day, I went so far as to go
here to get my hair cut and colored. Even when I didn't go there, coloring my hair used to cost me at least $75-100 every time I had it done--I also had it cut every time, too, but I don't want to add that in here - just know it was another $40-50 for the haircut--before tip. Honestly, when I was working, I didn't mind paying that...the salon was right by my office and the appointment could be scheduled for a long lunch or right after work, so the boys (I didn't have Buttercup then), weren't inconvenienced. It worked out to do that every 3 or 4 months.
It doesn't work out now. Since my hair is getting grayer and grayer, I've got to do it every 8-10 weeks or so (I stretch it - I really should be doing it every 8 weeks), that would cost me $500 a year! Instead, I have Superman help me put highlights in my hair with a haircolor product I get at Target for $6.84 (or maybe it is $8.64 - let's use the bigger number for the sake of this example)...$56 in hair color if I do it every 8 weeks. Has everytime turned out beautifully? No, Superman's given me an odd splotch every now and then, but, I need to be fair...he gave me time to learn and didn't give me a hard time for my mess-ups, he deserves the same. Besides, it is much easier to take a not-perfect dye job when you paid less than $10 for it vs. $75, don't you think?
These are some of the things I do so we can afford to have me stay home. Honestly, I don't feel like I'm giving up anything by doing these things. I love being home and learning new things and I feel proud to know we did it ourselves.
What do you do? What tricks have you learned that help you keep up a certain quality of life, but help you save money at the same time.
