Economical

My hair’s about at the stage where I need to cut it again. Fortunately I have my trusty $20 clippaz to get the job done.

I was thinking the other day about just how much money these things have saved me. I started cutting my own hair about sophomore year of college and haven’t gone to a barber since. (Which is sometimes sad, because old-school barbershops are the phattest thing in grooming.) I’ve been through two pairs at $20 apiece since then, so that’s a total hair expenditure of $40.

If I cut my hair once a month, which is actually less often than I do it now, then that’s roughly $18 per month for your standard haircut. That seems like a total ripoff, so it’s good that I’m paying the high cost of zero. It’s been eight years and two months (!) since I started my sophomore year of college, so that works out to 98 months. If you multiply that by $18, you get $1,764. Subtract $40 and you still have $1,724. Oh snap.

So each set of clippers is a net positive worth of $862. What about if I assume I cut my hair every two weeks, which is a lot more realistic? At 26 times per year over eight years, plus four more for two months, then I’ve got a net of $3,776—$1,888 per clipper set.

This 2006 unkempt version of me, with glasses and a buzz cut, agrees wholeheartedly that that is amazing.