Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Anti-Frugal Spending

From my favorite show: Parks & Rec


Ms. DebtFree here with some transparency about my spending this month.  If I haven't mentioned this already, I really like shopping and a lot of my blogging is for personal accountability about my spending.  Well, this month I definitely had some frivolous purchases and figured I better fess up before we review our end of the month spending.


My Hair Is Not Frugal

I love, love, love getting my hair done.  It's taken me years to find a stylist who knows their way around natural curls and the one I have does amazing work.  Now, having curly hair does have a few perks.  I can stretch out the time between cuts to about 3-4 months so technically I only need to go in 3-4 times per year.  However, I also like coloring my hair and that's where some of the expense really kicks in.  Lately I've been going for a balayage style, which allows me to have touch ups every 4-6 months vs. every 4-6 weeks.

But then there are the products.  Oh, those products.  I go through conditioner like nobody's business!  Curly hair may have its perks in the cut/color department, but it takes a hit on shampoo, conditioner, and styling products.  Finding the right formula is totally curl specific.  And for my hair, weather-dependent.  MixedChicks was my go-to when I lived in the Midwest, but in the Pacific Northwest my hair seems to like DevaCurl the best.  For the hair-naive, these are not cheap products! 

Okay, enough with my gushing about products.  What was the actual hit to my wallet?  For one DevaCurl cut, toner (simple explanation: a coloring service), the big 32oz shampoo and conditioner set, and a tip: $233.36.

Ouch!


The Real Cost Of Treating Yourself

Did some math with Mr. DebtFree and figured out it would take one 12-hr shift at the hospital to pretty much cover my hair day.  

*Sigh*

Ironically, I had a hellacious hectic shift the following Saturday.  Several times throughout the day I half-jokingly questioned whether this was my punishment for spending so much on my hair! 

The big question Mr. DebtFree had for me: was it worth working as a staff RN for 12 hours to pay for my hair?

For me: absolutely!


Everything In Moderation

I'm pretty much a Goodwill-aholic unless we're talking scrubs, compression socks, or nursing shoes.  I feel comfortable with my hair being my one "treat yourself" expense.  I don't buy much makeup or even wear it every day.  I've really cut back on buying knick-knacks for the house and many of my prior purchases were at thrift stores because that's my jam!

My hair is my one vice and I'm okay with that for now.  In school I let my hair go back to it's natural color for about three years to save money.  Maybe one day I'll let it go back to it's natural light brown with new touches of silver.  Or maybe not.  As long as I keep spending low in other areas I don't mind working a little extra to do fun stuff to my hair.

And then we have Mr. DebtFree over here who shaved his head bald while I was at work in protest of my hair spending...  We are so different in some areas, but we are always on the same page where it counts!



Mr. DebtFree's Free Haircut!
Ms. DebtFree's "Fun" Haircut/color





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