Great Financial Decisions in DelMoniq History #4 - Buying Hair Clippers

I just got done cutting my hair, and while I was in the shower afterward, I thought of Great Decision #4 -- Buying my own hair clippers.

Back during my time at my first job after graduate school, I was poor -- way poor. My rent was more than I could afford and paying back my debt was taking nearly ALL of my salary, post-bills. Part of this was that I was being paid crap and part was because I still had not managed to get my spending under control.

Anyway, one day back in December 2004, I decided that a great way to save money was to start cutting my own hair. All through grad school, I was being cheap, by going to SuperCuts. There was one close to my apartment and one across the street from school. Initially, a haircut would cost me about $12-15. I could walk over when I had downtime between experiments or during lunch or whatever, and that was just fine. But over the years, the cuts got more and more expensive. I think my last one was $25. I only cut my hair every 4-6 months, so we're only talking about $50-120/year. It's not THAT big of a deal.

However, my situation had become so pathetic, that come the end of 2004, I was looking for ANYTHING that could possibly save me money. On my way home from work one day, I had this thought. I need a haircut. But why pay $25 for one haircut, when I could potentially do it myself for cheaper. I got a couple of friends to come over, one of whom cut his own hair for quite some time, and I went to Target and bought my very own hair clippers for about $25. My buddy EO cut my hair for me in my bathroom, and not only did she do a great job, we had a blast. I think that her boyfriend even cut his own hair, but I may be remembering that wrong.

Anyway, ever since, I've been cutting my own hair. I have been able to do it myself and get cuts about as good as SuperCuts, for FREE! Sure, sometimes, I frak it up and look like ass for a few weeks while it grows out, but it's just hair; it does grow back. It's now nearly five years later, and I still have not paid for a hair cut since.

It's been great on days (like today), when I come home and am very annoyed with my hair, and I just say, "Today, Hair, you're going DOWN!" And I just cut it all off (I pretty much shaved it all off today, but I have cut with more style in the past). Plus, I get to just hop right in the shower afterward and wash all those irritating, itchy loose hairs right off, instead of having to go around for the rest of the day being irritated.

Plus, over the past year, I've cut a friend of mine's hair several times. So, not only am I getting free hair cuts, my friends can too. Granted, this works mainly because I'm a boy, and I'm not terribly picky about my hair. There are those out there that would rather just suck it up and pay to have a pro coif his or her mop. But for me, this has be absolutely great.

So, to recap... $25 for hair clippers at Target = 5 years of free haircuts (and probably many more to come; that sucker is still going strong). OOH! And I totally forgot! I also use it to trim down my beard. That's another thing I started doing at that time. Instead of forking over $15-20 per pack of razors and shaving gel, I'd just trim the bushy face down to a uniform layer of stubble -- FOR FREE! Personally, I think I look better with stubble, but what do I know? And yes, sometimes, I just have to shave it all off and be smooth. But I have drastically reduced the amount of money that I spend on shaving supplies. I really only buy razors about once a year (for a 4 pack), and that works great.

So yeah, buying my own hair clippers. EXCELLENT FINANCIAL DECISION!

Porn. Probably NSFW, but there are no pictures.

A while back, SS4BC posted about Sex and the Wallet, and its a great post about about the cost of things in that arena. And I know that I have a habit of over-sharing (see comments on the linked post, if youre really curious). I assure you that Im not creepy, but I wont be offended if you dont finish reading this post.






















Anyway, I was just randomly surfing around online tonight, and went to a great site for buying adult DVDs that I had not visited in a long time. Remember, porn is expensive, and I try NOT to do expensive these days.

Anyway, they are having a sale. Any 5 DVDs for $59.95. Doesnt exactly sound like a sale, but when you think about each DVD alone will cost you $45-60, thats a tremendous savings. Of course, I caved, and bought 5 DVDs. And I know that I probably shouldnt have bought them. I can justify this.

(1) I havent bought any porn in over 2 years.
(2) Buying them individually, I would have easily spent $250. So, I saved about $200. Granted as I would not have bought them at that price, I actually saved nothing. But this is purely me justifying my wrongness here.

So, yeah. I caved on an impulse buy, but in an okay way. And I realize that I should be drawing more of a hardline with myself. But my new DVD rule has curbed a LOT of impulse buying. Plus, its actually kind of fun. I was at Target and Best Buy today, and only spent $30 total. But the fun was in looking at the DVDs. And realizing that a $40 DVD set would need to have over 1200 minutes of content to fit the rule. And its really exciting when you find something that fits the rule. I was able to buy House Season 5 and Big Love Season 2, because they were each under 3 cents/minute. I satisfied my DVD urge, and stayed within the budget. The Big Love sale was a real find, because typically HBO shows are WAY more expensive that your standard DVD set.

Anyhoo, thats that. And again, Ill probably not even bother looking for adult DVDs for another year or so, and itll be even longer until I buy again. But a sale like that is really hard to pass up. Its like buy 1 get 4 free.

Yes yes... justify away, Im still bad for buying any at all.

Thank you Target!

So, in writing my last post I realized two things: (1) I really shouldn't have bought two sets of Legos and (2) my one collectible vice I'm allowing myself (U.B. Funkeys) rang up at $10.99 instead of the sticker price of $3.45!

So, after posting my post, I hopped back in the car with Legos and Funkeys and receipt in my red, reusable Target bag and headed back to Target. I returned the two Legos and got the price adjusted on the Funkeys. Total refund: $30.75!

So, now I'm only over my $100/week by $40, which is so not bad for my inaugural two week period. Of course, I'm going to try better for the second half of July. Quitting smoking now would definitely save me at least $40 over two weeks. So, that's what I'm going to do. I was going to say try. But really need to DO THIS.

Granted since I picked up the disgusting, lethal habit again in November, I've been much less of a smoker than when I was going whole-hog before (3 or 4 packs/week vs. 8 or 9), but cigarettes cost WAY more now (~$7/pack), so I'm guessing that I'm spending about the same amount of money despite smoking a lot less.

**sigh** or rather **cough cough**

Okay, with this detail out of the way, I have something else that I've been thinking all evening about blogging.

Stay Tuned...