How I saved $18,000 this weekend

Ok, so not all $18K was this weekend, but something happened and with some elementary math, my estimates are that over the course of the next 40 years - until I'm 65 - this will save me a little over EIGHTEEN THOUSAND dollars. Now, to the good part---HOW?

I have brown hair. I like my brown hair a lot and I like it when it's a rich brown color. This is why when I schedule my hair appointments, I always set aside time for a "cut and color". So about every 8 weeks, that appointment comes up, I spend 2 - 2.5 hours of my evening in the salon (which is fine because I like my stylist) and about $120, with tip included, to get that rich brown look. I used to get blond highlights when I was like 18/19 years old, that was more expensive than the $120....so I figured that I was getting a good deal. Two hair appointments ago, Jimmy BEGGED me to get some highlights. So I got like 10 foils done and it was less...like only $80. So the next time I went in, I was just floored that I was spending so much money to just get one color put on my hair, which really doesn't require too much skills (I'm not saying it's easy or discounting the school that goes into this...because trust me, I know it's not easy!!)

Fast forward to my browsing through a SELF magazine and coming across an article talking about hair color and what is "ok" to do at home and what is better to leave for the experts. And there I saw it....brown to a richer brown...."save your money, do it at home". But what if it messes up? What if my hair turns red/orange/blue/pink? I HAVE to get it done by a professional. In comes my mom who always dyes her own hair. She says it's easy and I should try it. Ok, so she's my right hand lady in all of this now :)

So after much internal agony and research, my mom and I were off to Target early Saturday afternoon...bought some nice & easy hair dye....and started the process. I was nervous through the whole thing but was determined to try to do most of it by myself so I didn't have to ask her to help every time I wanted to dye my hair. So after a detailed application process, lots of dye on my skin (ears, arms, you name it), we waited. Then waited 5 minutes longer, and then rinsed. And ta da................. (this is with all 5 of the wiener dogs of course!)

FYI: This is (from left) Daisy- parents, Lani - sister's, Milly, Willy and Puddles- parents!

I love the color and it looks great, no streaks or anything! To give you some sort of reference to what it looked like earlier that day, here is a picture of Jimmy and I the night before getting ready to head out on our date night.....

Big difference :) Love it!!

For those of you that are interested---here is my math behind this:

Normal hair cut/color with tip: $120
Box of Color (with tax): $8
Hair cut with tip: $45
Total: $53
Hair cut/colors per year*: 7
*(52 wks/8 wks = 6.5 per year, I rounded up to 7)

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*120): $840
$$ spent in 40 years (840*40): $33,600

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*53): $371
$$ spent in 40 years (371*40): $14,840

Difference over 40 years (33600-14840): $18,760

So there you have it...exactly how I managed to save over $18K in a simple Saturday. Now Jimmy should be thanking me, right? :) While this is nice for me, since I really do like my hair all one color and it doesn't take much expertise to dye it like that, this will work great for me! And I can do it at my convenience as well, which is something else I really like! I know that this is just not an option for those of you that really shine in the highlights and love them, so I'm sorry, I don't have a money saving solution of that magnitude to off-set your hair grooming costs. I'll work on it though :) But really, if you are nervous about dying out of a box- DON'T be! A few tips that SELF provided:

- First section hair off into 4 sections. Focus on one at a time
- Start at the roots and work your way down your hair....make sure you get the hair line that frames your face well
- Don't spread the dye all the way to the roots, wait until there are 5-8 min left and then drag the color down to the roots- that will make it look more professional

And that's it!! Good luck if you dare to venture into boxed dye :)