If you are looking for ways to be more frugal, a first step can be looking in the mirror. If you get your hair cut at a salon every 4 weeks at a cost of $20, you can spend more than $360 a year on getting your hair cut. And, if you are anything like me, it doesn’t stop there. The cost of highlights, color, perms (do people still get those?) and more add up to quite a bit more. And most of us don’t live alone—our kids and spouses need haircuts as well.
So, what can you do? Here are a few easy ways to save money on hair cuts:
- Decrease the frequency of haircuts. This seems simplistic but many of us are in a routine of getting our hair trimmed every 4-6 weeks. Anything longer and we feel unkempt. If you gradually increase the interval between cuts, you won’t notice the difference but your wallet will!
- Swap services. As a professional organizer, I frequently recommend that clients swap babysitting or meal preparation for the services of a friend that is naturally organized. The same principle applies to haircuts. See if there is a SAHM in your church, mom’s group or PTA that used to be a beautician. Then see if you can swap services or pay them less than the salon charges. I have a friend at church that cuts hair for WAY less than you can get it done at the salon and makes a nice second income for her family right out of her kitchen.
- Go to school- beauty school that is. If there is a beauty school in your area, they often offer the same services as a salon but at a reduced price. This gives you a cheap haircut and the student the opportunity to practice on a real person.
- Last but not least cut your own hair (or at least the hair of your kids and husband). You can dye your own hair as well. There are clippers available online and at major retail stores. One product that I recommend is the AirCut. You can visit my blog for a review. The best thing about the AirCut is that you don’t have a mess to clean up afterwards as it stores the hair in a canister until emptied.
As you can see, it is possible to save on haircuts. Let us know if you have any tips we haven’t thought of.
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I have cut my husband’s hair for years. It’s simple—buzz it down w/ a No3 blade…and it’s getting increasingly easier b/c his hair keeps decreasing…lol…I didn’t say that!
As far as my hair, I now go to a Great Clips for 14.00 a pop, then I swing over to Walgreen’s for a color box—cut and color for about 20.00. When I was less frugal (and single) I would spend about 150.00 on my hair every other month! That was then…
It is amazing how much more frugal we become when we get married LOL Thanks for the comment, Nikki
The Aircut works well on my hair (wavy, not really curly, cut at about 3″ for some years now). A Flowbee worked well, too, for a few years, but is fairly awkward and bulky, and requires a vacuum cleaner. I thought I’d try the Aircut. It’s only as bulky as a large hair dryer.
My Aircut has been good for about 18 months of haircuts. However, now the blades are not cutting cleanly, but frizzing the ends of my hair. I contacted Aircut, they do not sell new bladesets, so the whole Aircut kit,; machine itself, a lot of spacers, AC adaptor, wire and packaging, must be thrown away, and a new kit bought. Aircut’s reply included the observation that Aircut blades don’t get dull.
Flowbee bladesets are available at $25+ shipping. They look a lot like Aircut bladesets, but are bigger, and do not fit an Aircut. Guess how I know.
So your choice is: a Flowbee that is bulky, but takes replaceable blades, or an Aircut that must be entirely replaced, according to Aircut., though I’ve now had one apart, and it wouldn’t be that big a deal, mechanically, to sell parts. Logistically? Welcome to the global economy.
The Aircut is still cheaper and more convenient by far than using a barber, but it is a bit of an ecological disaster. Short-sighted thinking – and delusional, if the designers actually believe the blades don’t get dull.