Skip to main content

Cheapo Hacks: The $0 Haircut

Cutting my own hair is one of the things I've always wanted to do but never could work up the nerve to actually try until recently. I know many bald guys have been doing it for a while - one of the few perks of losing your hair, I'd imagine. Just buzz what's left as tight as you want, and you're done.

But, for those of us who've managed to hold onto our hair on top of our head a little longer, cutting your hair seems like a very risky proposition. I work an office job, so keeping a low profile for a week or two after royally screwing up isn't really an option. This made the economics of trying it more trouble than it was worth, or so I thought. After all, if it was so easy, why do no one other than bald guys cut their own hair? I didn't know of any.

$20 after tip every couple of months seemed like a pretty pointless amount of money to worry about, even for a cheapo. Part of the problem, however, was that I'd either have to hurry over after work or try to go before or during work, which was a hassle. I'm usually not around on the weekends, and going then also means you're probably going to have to wait a while.

On a lark, I bought a self-haircutting kit on my favorite deals site, Slickdeals. $35 shipped - not too bad, I thought. The largest guard wasn't that big, so I figured one day I'd give it a try and it'd pay for itself, since my hair would be so short that I probably wouldn't have to go back to the barber for another 4 months. Maybe it'd look ok.


My wife saw it laying out one day and asked why the hell I ever bought it and that I'd never actually use it. Well, one day I decided to give it a try:


Not too bad, though I noticed that after a couple of weeks, my hair length looked a lot better. Remington didn't make a guard any bigger for this kit than the one that came with it, but I found a 1" guard for my old corded Wahl clippers. So, I bought that and gave it a try for my next go-around, and used the cordless Remington for the sides. It looked much better.

At first, I started with keeping the sides a fixed length, figuring that trying to do a fade myself is surely where I'd manage to screw it up, but the thing about hair cutting is that if you try things in very small increments, it's hard to screw up that noticeably.

So, now I do a 1" (#9 guard) cut on top. Actually, I cut everything to that length as a baseline just to make sure I don't miss any spots. I then run a 5/8" (#6 guard) straight up the sides followed by a 1/2" (#5 guard) for the lower fade, running straight up to the height of the tops of my ears. I finish by using a handheld  mirror along with the bathroom mirror to shape the back of my neckline.

Most people are shocked when they hear that I cut my own hair since it looks like a professional job. Here's what it looks like now (I cut my hair about a week ago):


I really liked using the cordless clippers since I could stand in the shower and kind of contain the mess there, and I really would prefer if Remington made a larger guard for my cordless kit, but since they don't, I improvised. I bought another of their 5/8" guards that I modified it into a 1" guard with popsicle sticks cut to 1" lengths and krazy glued to the spot on the guard where the clippers make contact with your hair. It works perfectly, and now I can do my whole hair-cutting job in the shower in about 15 minutes as often as I want, usually every week or two.


So, if you decide to try this, you can make whatever guard length you want and give it a whirl. Start conservatively, and go from there. There's something really cool about always having a clean haircut like you're a baller who can't afford not to always look his best when the reality is you're just a cheapo with a little pizzazz.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Second Look at Exercise

I'll be a first time dad in the next week or two, and I'm already dealing with the time crunch and cheapo routine disruptive life events. Being a cheapo means improvising, so sometimes you need to rethink methodologies to adapt to changing circumstances. My 9 month pregnant wife has been joining me on my dog walks in order to get some exercise herself, and she can't go as far as I can for as far along as she is. Also, she has a hankering for dining out more often than we normally do, so it adds a little more guesswork to my calorie estimates when my margins are already running pretty thin. Add in doctors appointments, chores and other prep tasks, and a lot of my extra time for walking is just vanishing. It's only going to get harder once this baby gets here. It's my fault for allowing my weight to run away from me such that I'm in a position now to where I'm trying to lose a lot of weight quickly before the baby arrives. I'm losing weight steadily...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mechanics

Ok, now that you've read through the high level stuff, let's get down to brass tacks: The reality is, you're going to want to make some changes to your daily routine, but how much you do depends on how much you want to lose and how quickly you want to lose it. There's nothing wrong with going at a slower pace, but I would just advise that you adjust your diet enough that you're seeing enough consistent enough gains that you stick with it. Remember, as long as you're still logging food, odds are you're still losing weight. I've already mentioned that you'll need a pedometer or fitness tracker. That needs to become a permanent extension of your body. You don't need to be a gym rat (in fact, you should have already cancelled your gym membership by now), but it's hard to be completely sedentary and still run calorie deficits. Or, put another way, a little bit of activity will give you a lot more wiggle room in your diet every day. A 10,000...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chopping Down Costs & Fat

I've spent a lot of time talking about how gym memberships are a complete waste of time and money. For most people, they make about as much sense as skipping all your errands to spend the day taking joyrides up and down a toll road. The fact is, we all have chores that need to get done around the house which all represent opportunities for exercise and cost savings by not paying someone else to do them for you. They may not be as physically demanding as splitting wood, but they all involve doing things that need to get done anyway and, more importantly, occupying your time by doing something other than eating, the leading cause of fatness. Now, I'm not proposing that you start tilling your garden with a fork just to keep yourself out of the kitchen. There's always a delicate balance between efficiency, exercise, cost savings and enjoyment of the task at hand when deciding where to spend extra money for efficiency's sake. For example, I know that I could get my...
Post a Comment
Read more