Beauty and the Frugalite: At-Home Haircuts

For years I have cut my husband's hair at home. We have a trimmer with all the attachments that we bought for about $20 and has served us well over time. My husband used to do the simple #1 buzz cut all over, but then switched to a two-length fade. It took a little adjustment, but I figured it out and can do it pretty well now.

Much more risky, however, is cutting my hair. His hair is so short that in a week or so any errors will be erased. My hair is a little more complicated. It's fairly straight, and I like to wear it between chin- and shoulder-length. It sounds simple, but cutting it is definitely more involved than buzzing his melon.

The last time I cut my hair was in May 2007. I try not to spend money on myself very much to keep within our budget and throw more at the debt, and regular haircuts have never been my specialty. Recently, my hair has been bothering me - it was too long and lifeless, and it took forever to blow dry. So I did something adventurous - I asked my husband to cut my hair for me.

He cut my hair once before, and it turned out pretty good. Or at least I thought it did until I went to a salon and they asked me if I had cut it myself. Oops, I didn't think it was that obvious. Regardless, I figured I'd give it another go. The budget has been tighter than normal and I was fed up with my hair. It was time to take a risk.

I won't pretend I wasn't nervous. What if it came out crooked? What if he cut off too much? What if he slipped and poked me in the eye with the scissors? But in the end, I trusted my husband to do a good job. We went for a simple cut, no angles or layers and soon the floor looked like this:


Yipes! That's a lot of hair! He cut off about 4 inches, and I am loving the new 'do. If you want to try this at home, I recommend:

• Sharp hair scissors - no paper shears, they can fray you into split-endsville
• Comb - all we had was a brush and my ears suffered for it
• Towel to wrap around your shoulders
• Trash bag to lay on the floor & catch the cuttings
• Steady hand
• Sharp eyes
• Hand held mirror to check out the back

My coworkers think I'm crazy to let my husband near my hair with scissors. Have you or would you ever try this at home?

*Update* Shanti tried it at home the very same day as I did and posted about it too! Great frugal minds think alike!

Judgment Days are Gone

I am a judgmental person when it comes to money. I try not to be, but there it is. Judgment. I (usually) keep it to myself, or at least mention it only to my husband. But it is there, in my head. Thinking of how I would do things differently. Only I am judgmental in a backwards way than normal - I judge when people spend too much money (in my opinion).

I work with a guy who spends money like it's going out of style. He buys $250 jeans, designer leashes for his dog and dry cleans every article of clothing he owns. Sometimes I cannot believe the stories he has to tell. And tell them he does. He's putting it out there, just like I write about our finances. So, arguably, his choices might not be the most prudent. But what do I know? He could have no debt, maxed out retirement savings and a million dollars in the bank. Who am I to judge?

Even if I know the ins and outs of someone's finances, why should I think that I know what is better for them than they do? Why does my mind always jump right to what they should be doing differently to be more frugal? It's a lifestyle choice, and for the most part, their decisions don't affect me at all.

I think that somewhere inside I still see material goods and possessions and outward displays of money as valuable. For the most part, in our society, people are not perceived as "rich" unless they drive the fancy cars and live in the big mansions. When I judge others for spending, I am really just a little jealous. That I don't have money to do that and reach my financial goals. So to make myself feel better, I put them down in my head as if they are being frivolous and wasteful.

I am going to stop doing this to myself. Whenever I have a negative, judgmental thought, I will replace it with this: Those is their personal finances. My personal finances are mine. Hopefully, this will result in a happier outlook overall.

My Top 10 Favorite Free Things To Do

The other day, Trent at the Simple Dollar posted about free things to do. It really got me thinking. With all the whining I've done recently, I need to celebrate some of the finer (free) things in life, because, let's face it, it's not so bad. :)

I made a list of all my favorite free things to do and stopped at 56 because that's how many lines were on the piece of paper and I am weird like that. I could probably double that, given the time and another sheet of paper. I could bore you with a nice, long, 112 item list, but I figured I'd whittle it down to the top ten. Since I love countdowns and think they're much much better than countups, I present to you, in ascending order, my ten most favorite free things to do.

10. Taking a walk. Little did I know that, when my parents and I would take walks with our dogs years ago, that it was actually fun and useful. I enjoyed it then and I enjoy it now - a nice little stroll down the road or a walk around the park. Lovely.

9. Sledding. Not tubing, sledding. We live next to a golf course with a nice big hill up to the 6th green. I'm sure it's a bugger to play that hole, but it's fun to slide down the hill!

8. Sunbathing. I know, I know, skin cancer. Bad for you. UV rays. But it feels SO GOOD to lay out in the sunshine and feel the sweet breeze on your skin. Since my husband is fair-skinned, I use sunscreen religiously when planning a day out. I most often sunbathe at the beach (obviously) and love to combine it with...

7. Reading a (borrowed) book. Whether borrowed from the library or my darling sister or mom, I rarely buy books, but read as many as I have time to. I have always been big into reading and I go through them pretty quickly, easily losing myself in the story.

6. Sitting by a fire. In the fireplace or an outdoor campfire, I am drawn to a burning pile of logs like, well, a moth to a flame. Something about the crackling wood and the smoke transcends all seasons and is very relaxing. My husband and I have had many heart to hearts while staring into the fires - it makes for some good conversations and removes the everyday hum of technology that seems to surround us.

5. Sleeping. I remember the days when I begged to stay up later than my bedtime. Now, bedtime is something I look forward to every night. I love my bed and the feeling of complete relaxation when I place my head on the pillow.

4. Playing with my Kitties. My two crazy cats are always coming up with something new. Calypso, the older cat loves to jump for toys - I mean back flips. Tango, the baby, has learned how to play fetch with his toys and keeps bringing them back. They just always bring a smile to my face.

3. Snuggling. I love to curl up on the couch with my husband and kitties and watch a movie or just plain be. It's probably the easiest way to unwind after a long day.

2. Taking Pictures. I have always been a take pictures of things and not people kind of girl. I like to carry the camera around and capture whatever catches my eye. While you could argue that this isn't free because you need a camera, we bought ours years ago and use it often enough that the cost per use is very very low.

1. Playing Board Games. This is my favorite thing to do when we have a group of people together. My preferred game is Pictionary, but I love them all - Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, Scrabble. We received most of our board games as gifts and my family always shows up to a party with one or another in hand. Case in point - my sister introduced us to Oodles this past weekend and we all had a blast.

I know that some of these items have an initial overhead cost, but at this point in time they are free for us. You can argue, of course, that my cats aren't free because of food, litter, vet bills, etc., but the point is that I don't have to spend any money to do any of these things today. There are plenty of activities I could choose to do that are costly, and I plan to use my list to keep enjoying the simple, free things in life.

Procrastination Costs me Money

I am a horrific procrastinator. I always wait until the last possible second to do anything - clean my house before people come over, finish work before a deadline. I even write my posts right before bed. For some reason, I won't do my tasks until there's pressure. Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?

I have two possible culprits (excuses) for why I procrastinate so much. One, I was an engineering major in college and learned to operate remarkably well under pressure, which somehow translated to only operating when under pressure. Or it could be the second reason - I have so many things to do that only the mos imperative tasks are done each day. Urgency is a pretty good way to get to the top of my list. Unfortunately, more tasks are added to my to-do list every day and there are a few that keep getting pushed until tomorrow... or the next day... or the next day.

Regardless of the reasoning, there are a few issues that crop up due to my penchant for putting things off. I am always under pressure, which,while I thrive under pressure, can be irritating at times. And it costs me money.

I can think of 2 ways in the past week that I spent money because I procrastinated and didn't plan ahead. I went to the grocery store next to my retail job one night because I didn't get enought food for dinner that night. This store just happens to charge about twice as much for their food than my normal store. But the better example is my husband's birthday last week. On his actual birthday, I bought his present, picked out a card and finished making his cake. Not only could I have saved some money by planning ahead and comparison shopping, I could have gotten his card for free using CVS deals and spent more time with him and less time frosting the cake. Between the two of these I could have saved $7-10.

But these are just small examples. In the past, I have paid credit cards late and missed other payments by putting them off. While I haven't done that in quite some time (my one error notwithstanding), I'm still not quite organized or efficient enough to maximize my money. But I'm getting there. The first step is to admit you have a problem. :) Now to go about solving it...

New Year's Eve Bait and Switch

This past weekend, my husband and I drove down to his parent's house to celebrate Christmas, New Year's, and both of our birthdays with them. On New Year's Eve, we drove into Baltimore to go to their Spectacular, complete with live music and fireworks.

We decided to go out to diner before the fireworks, and called the day before to make reservations. When I gave the restaurant my name, they also took a credit card number to hold the table and noted that, should we cancel our reservation, it would be charged $50. This should have been my first hint that trouble was afoot. Naively, I thought they needed to take credit cards because it was a busy night and didn't want to be holding a table for people who weren't going to show up. While I'm sure that was a part of it, there was more to it.

Before we went into Baltimore, I checked out the menu on the restaurant's website. The entrees ranged from $18-$40, which is much more than we usually spend. However, we knew that this was a special occasion and had prepared for it. I picked out a meal before we went for $21, planned to have one drink and then switch to water, and figured I was golden.

When we got to the restaurant, it was an entire different story. We pranced in and were told they were using a special menu for the night. OK, no big deal, I can pick something else to eat. Until I saw the menu. Then I freaked out.

Everything on the menu was a package - appetizer, entree, dessert, soft drink, coffee & champagne toast. There was no option to just pick an entree and call it a night. Worst of all - the cheapest package was $53. Our cost had essentially doubled and there was nothing we could do about it.

We considered leaving, but the $50 hold on the credit card made it pretty pointless to do so - any other place we chose to eat would cost about $50 and, with the credit card hold, we'd be right back at square one. So we stayed and chose to enjoy ourselves instead of getting angry and ruining the night. And you had better believe we got every single thing offered as an option.

The restaurant really handled the situation poorly. First of all, it was way too much food for one person to eat. Generally we split an appetizer or a dessert, never mind each ordering our own of both. I was bursting at the seams after eating everything out of spite. In addition, there was no mention on the website or when I called to make the reservation of the special menu with the higher prices. I really feel like we were duped and tricked into spending more money than we normally would. I'm not sure what the advantage of this is for the restaurant - obviously, the make more money, but we couldn't have been the only ones who felt tricked. It has turned me off to that restaurant and eating out in general - which, I suppose is good for the budget in the long run. I'm sure that won't last too long!

Afterwards, the fireworks were Spectacular!

Practically a Different Person

Last week, when reading a post over at PaidTwice about her changes in attitude, I started thinking of how I've changed since we started this debt payoff journey. I couldn't really come up with anything except "I spend less money now". It sounds so simple, right?

Then I had a conversation with my sister, discussing our respective Christmas lists. I told her a few things I was looking for: knee highs, undershirts, hair mousse, cookbooks, and she proclaimed, "But none of those are fun!" It hit me like a ton of bricks - almost everything on my list was practical. Even the cookbooks weren't solely for pleasure; they were useful, too. I wasn't really asking for things that I wanted, but things that I needed. Things that the old me would have run out to the store to buy.

Somewhere in the past year and a half, I went from buying the things I wanted to buying the things that I needed to wanting the things that I needed. Unless it is something I can't live without, I put off buying it until I can ask for it as a gift. I have been out of hair mousse for at least 3 months, but I refuse to buy it because I don't strictly need it. Same goes for some makeup - I have been using an old, forgotten eyeliner until I can ask for a new one in my Christmas stocking.

Of course, if it's an essential, it's already built into the budget, but for all the little "extra" items, nope. Many a time I've stood in an aisle of Target, picked up some new non-necessity only to put it right back again. The one time in recent memory I've actually purchased a non-necessary item for my self, it was a pack of bobby pins. That were on sale. For $0.79. That, when I got home, I gave to my husband to give to me for Christmas. In October.

There are plenty of examples of my attitude transformation:

BAD: Buying a magazine every time I saw a new issue on the newsstands
BETTER: Subscribing to my favorite magazines
BEST: Ordering magazines through My Coke Rewards (Bonus: using other people's Coke caps) and reading from the selection at the gym

BAD: Grocery shopping every day, with reckless abandon
BETTER: Grocery shopping once a week with a list
BEST: Grocery shopping once a week with a list, coupons, freezer inventory and menu plan

BAD: Buying myself gifts because "I deserved it"
BETTER: Buying myself treats with my fun money
BEST: Treating myself to free "gifts" like a night in watching movies or an hour blog-a-thon :)

BAD: Buying books I wanted to read
BETTER: Only buying a few books, on sale
BEST: Getting books at the library, or with gift certificates

BAD: Replacing an item if it broke, on credit
BETTER: Replacing broken items with cash
BEST: Evaluating how necessary the item was, and only replace immediately if I can't go on without it

Obviously, this has pushed me to become more frugal, and work towards the ultimate goal of eliminating our debt. Some of these are borderline cheap, but they only affect my husband and me, and are taken on a case-by-case basis. It's pretty amazing to see the differences in our spending now that we only buy absolute necessities.