The Simple Life As An Extreme Sport: Cut Wife's Hair

I just put my head in the mouth of a lion, figuratively speaking. It was one of the most dangerous things I have ever done. What did I do? I cut my wife's hair. Oh, the lengths we will go to in order to maintain our simple, frugal lifestyle of fun and freedom.

I am afraid I can't really recommend this one to anyone, considering the danger involved. Cutting your partner's hair (especially me cutting hers) is a delicate process that should be approached with extreme caution.

Linda has been cutting my hair for about ten years. I am very satisfied with the results, and she has made it look easy. It isn't. But at $30-$50 bucks a crack, that translates to thousands of dollars in savings. What would you do with an extra $3000 to $6000 dollars every 10 years?

Of course, we always had a fallback plan with my hair because if we ever did have a cutting malfunction we could always get out the razor and buzz my coif right down to bristles. This was not really an option with her hair, although she is headed in that direction if only to try it once. But not yet. If I made a mistake this time (and I was definitely bound to make many) it could be divorce.

A bead of sweat trickled down my temple as I prepared my crude implements - a pair of dull scissors, a hair band, and an old sheet. As I got everything ready I tried to remember the information from the books we borrowed from the library a few months ago. Did I have to hold the hair up or down when I cut? Where do the parts go? Gulp.

At her instruction, I put her long hair into one pony tail at the crown of her head. She assured me that the "Pony Tail Method" would yield the results she wanted. I thought of all the clips, and parts in the hair, and comb action from the books. Just hacking at her pony tail promised to be much easier.

With slightly trembling hands I grabbed the thick tail and, well, started hacking away. Swish, swish, swish my implement went with not quite Edward Scissorhands-like dexterity. Long chunks of hair began to fall away. Soon it was all over, or so I thought. I slid the hair band off the short stump.



We did not have a mirror immediately available so I was on my own. "How does it look?" my victim questioned with a hopeful look on her face. Help! It was one of those "Does my ass look big in this?" moments. I carefully surveyed what was left of her hair. It didn't look that good.

I swallowed hard and forged ahead bravely. "It looks... um, shorter, and that's what you wanted, right?" Wrong thing to say. She was anticipating more along the lines of, "It looks great - what a cute cut." What I was thinking was, "How am I going to fix this?"

Things quickly went from bad to worse, but before we were both in tears we got it together and went in for a second wave of hair removal. I remembered some tips from the book. She trusted me. We had some fun.



I am not sure if she will let me cut her hair again, ever, but my brave partner is pleased with the general outcome of our near-disastrous adventure in grooming frugality. I think she looks cute, but I would think that if she was bald so I'm perhaps not the best person to assess my work. I would like to learn more and be prepared to do a better job next time. I think. If there is one.

Are you frugal? Brave? Give it a go. Check your local public library. We found some very good resources in our system. There are some web sites on home hair cutting, but I prefer to have a good book handy. Having said that, this site has a lot of information.

Thousands of dollars in savings is substantial. You might have fun during this potentially very intimate activity. Of course, it could lead to tears (or worse), too, so I recommend proceeding with caution. You might want to make money in other less dangerous ways. Like fireworks manufacturing or toxic waste disposal.