Cutting Hair at Home: A Great Way to Save Money During a Recession

With the economy the way it is, many families are looking for ways to save money. While clipping coupons and shopping for sales are good ways of saving money on a day-to-day basis, there is a good way of saving a considerable amount of money on an infrequent basis: cutting hair at home. Home haircuts are a great way of saving money, especially nowadays. In this article, I am going to analyze some of the mathematics, benefits, and drawbacks of home haircuts.

First, I am going to use $25 as the cost of an average haircut. I am factoring in the cost of the haircut, tip, and travel. An average person might get 4-6 haircuts every year, meaning that the individual might pay $100-150 for haircuts on a yearly basis. A family of five might spend $500-750 on haircuts every year. Granted, this is dependent on the frequency with which family members get haircuts and the cost of those haircuts. Let's use $400 as the estimated cost of haircuts for a family of five, just to lowball it.

A pair of clippers and instructional video on hair cutting might cost $100. Doing the math, it is easy to find that a family of five could save $300 a year on haircuts by cutting hair at home. Granted, savings could be less or savings could be more, but after four haircuts, the clippers and video have paid for themselves.

Beyond saving money, there are other benefits of giving haircuts at home. For example, you never need to make an appointment to get a haircut, you don't have to wait half an hour or more for a walk in, you don't have to drive to the barber's shop or hair salon, you put less wear and tear on your car, and those that do the hair cutting will learn a skill. If you get good enough at cutting hair, you could even start an at home business, offering low-cost haircuts for friends or acquaintances. The key to this is being good. Still, you might be able to bring in an extra $20 or $30 a week doing this. You could also barter for goods or services.

Granted, there are some drawbacks to cutting hair at home. In the beginning, the haircuts might not be that great. Likewise, home haircuts might take slightly longer than a haircut at a salon would. Home haircuts might be limited in complexity, and a lack of equipment might be a limitation on styling. However, hair grows back, haircuts will get faster, and if you can save a few hundred dollars every year, perhaps style will be a little less important.

Cutting hair at home is a great way to save money in tough economic times. Developing a skill such as hair cutting is also never a bad idea. Do you have any experience with home hair cutting? Leave your thoughts in the form of a comment. Thank you for reading!