Saving Money: Haircuts

When I was in college, my roommate and I would trim each other's hair. Nothing fancy, just straight cuts across the ends. Since then I've also cut my MIL, SIL, and nieces' hair on various occasions.

I learned to cut Mr. S's hair shortly after he joined the military (almost 8 years ago now!). The first few weren't very pretty, but I'm a lot better now.

When he's active duty, we have to cut his hair every other week. At $8/cut times 26 weeks in a year, that's $208/year, not including tips. I paid $10 for the clippers at Big Lots about 8 years ago, and just barely replaced them with a $24 set. I think I've more than broken even. I've also recently invested in some good haircutting scissors from a beauty supply store (rather than cheapo scissors from wally world). Good scissors make a huge difference when trying to cut hair accurately. I don't remember exactly how much I paid, but I believe it was in the $20-30 range, and totally worth it.

LMS has had a grand total of 4 hair cuts in her life: I cut her bangs when she was about 16 months old- that was all she had, and I regretted doing it later, since it took longer to grow out and match the rest of her hair

Her next hair cut was at 2 years old: I just trimmed her ends to get rid of the baby mullet she was sporting.

notice the candy sitting in front of her as bribery!

She had another cut shortly after she turned 3, and I trimmed her ends again.

Yesterday I cut her hair again. I was going to wait till her next birthday, but her hair is thickening at the roots, leaving the ends looking scraggly. She also acts like she's dying anytime I try to comb out the snarls. Totally not worth the hassle.

Bribery definitely helps kids hold still while you turn their heads back and forth and try to make sure you're cutting evenly. I forgot this time around, and I think everything would have gone a lot smoother if I had had some on hand.

I get my hair cut once or twice a year. I think in the just over 2 years we've been here, I've gotten my hair cut three times. However, I don't cheap out when I get hair cuts. I have thick hair that's straight in the front and sides but with a weird, uneven curl in the back. I tried a Fantastic Sam's once, about 7 years ago, and it was the worst hair cut ever. Uneven and unflattering. Ever since, I pay more, but am much happier with my hair. Having longer hair also allows me to go longer between cuts. When I had shorter hair, I was having to get it trimmed about every 6-8 weeks.

A couple years ago I gave in and did what my hair wanted to do: fall forward into bangs- and cut bangs. I trim my own bangs on a regular basis, and when I bought the good haircutting scissors, I also bought some thinning scissors to give my bangs some texture. I've done a lot of experimenting with my bangs, and sometimes they look better than others, but I've mostly figured out how to make them look decent most of the time. It probably helps that my hair doesn't have to look absolutely perfect 100% of the time. I'm just not high maintenence that way.