Sly Bald Guys Forum
Various Non-Bald Discussions => General Discussion => Topic started by: Timmay on September 09, 2009, 07:15:25 AM
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My wife , few friends and I were sitting outside the other night enjoying our pit fire. The conversation turned to unnecessary spending. We all do it and do not even realize we do it. Have you ever just sat back and thought about the little things you spend money on that you really do not have to?
You tend to not think about it when it is just a single purchase but once you look at it over a months time...its kinda shocking actually.
Every morning...which you all have probably heard me say, I get a fountain pepsi and a hostess cake of some sort for breakfast. Along with that I also purchase the morning newspaper. My wife picks her up a soda everyday as well. Doing that everyday over a months time adds up to $119.00 a month!
Then it went further.... Very depressing at that. We eat out alot. Im not saying everyday , but we tend to get lazy. Every friday night we go to eat, Saturday afternoons, and sunday afternoons. With 5 people in our family, its not cheap. We will spend anywhere from $100-$150 a weekend just eating out..which again, figure that over 4 weekends a month...$400-$600 a month. Add that with $119 we spend a month....dudes thats almost $750 bucks a month that is just GONE!....GONE!
We are implementing some new ideas within our family. What those idea's are ??? Dont know yet...but we are lookign for suggestions from you SlyGuys. What are some of your money saving ideas that you have begun in your family, or do you ? Be interested in hearing what are some alternate ways you all have spent or saved your money?
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Great topic, Timmay!
David Bach wrote a book called "The Automatic Millionaire" that addressed this very thing. He had something called "The Latte Effect" where people taking the $ they spent on their mocha choca lotta frappa crap from Starbuck's and put it away. With the power of compounding, the $ they could put away is substantial. Oh, I brew my own coffee at home, so that's a big savings in the coffee dept.
1. With two active kids both involved in select soccer programs, our weekends are usually "on the go", so avoiding eating out is not easy. Still, we usually pack lunches & drinks to avoid the eating out.
2. We usually prefer to eat our meals at home for three reasons; #1, Healthy meals #2, cost and #3 both the Lovely Mrs. Schro & I love to cook.
3. The Lovely Mrs. Schro is not employed outside the house, so my paycheck is the only income. She does 99% of the shopping, and is very
thrifty and is smart with coupons and goes to a couple of different stores for different things.
4. BUY STORE BRANDS! This may surprise you, but if you have a chance, take a look at store brand foods (canned foods, cheese, etc). I used to work in the grocery industry (finance) and got to know the head of our Private Label brands. The quality is just as good and costs a ton less.
These are just a few of what we do at Chateau Schro.
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I was just talking with someone a ccouple of days ago about how, in our society, we complicate our lives in many ways and then tell ourselves that we are "simplifying". The truth is that I wonder if any of us, excluding the homeless, even have a clue as to what a "simple" life is. The reason I exclude the homeless is that there is an entire class of people in this country who live the "simple" life out of necessity. True enough, many of them are in the fix they're in due to negligence on their own part but a lot of the homeless are forced into their situation by way of circumstance: layoffs, divorce, bankruptcy, etc.
My parents grew up in the depression and one of the things that experience fostered was what is called the "depression mentality". My dad saved like a fiend, passed on a lot of luxuries that other people believed to be necessities, and generally lived what my aunt thought of as a drab life. Any time he or my mom needed something, though, the money was right there. Other people who strove to forget the depression by livin' it up had to save up for things or buy on credit.
This is the problem when a President tells people to go shopping after a time of national crisis. Shopping has replaced baseball as the national pastime. As a nation we have found ourselves to be in debt all the time. What Tim said about the expenses that we don't even keep track of, the morning pop, twinkie, and paper (good healthy fare!) and eating out even a couple of times a week amounts to hundreds of dollars a month. And even though we know that it's putting a strain on us, not only financially but mentally, we (I) continue to do it.
Thanks for this post Timmay. This really made me think.
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Everyone seems to be watching their copper pennies these days. Rather than spend $3-4 for lattes and cappacinos I took out our expresso machine that we've had for ages and cleaned it up. Now, a home made latte or cappacino costs less than 50 cents, even using premium brand 100% arabica bean expresso at $12 a can. We eat out less than before, and rather than having our drinks at the restaurant we have cocktails at home and come back for coffee--really saves $ on the restaurant bill--they plan for up to 50% of a bill to be for drinks and coffee! Their plan, not ours.
We don't eat out a lot, once a week usually--and we enjoy cooking at home. We shun prepared foods--we've even used Julia Child's receipe for home cured corn beef--a very interesting and thrifty treat. It's easy to make baba ganouche (sp) and it's a real favorite--and MUCH cheaper than the store bought stuff. And the extra benefit of cooking from scratch and enjoying it, you become a much more discriminating restaurant customer.
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So, is it safe to ask that we all agree that we spend way too much on "junk"?
Would you all be interested in doing a little project together? Say we start this on Monday Sept.14, choose an activity or two that we spend unnecessary money on and cut back. Take that money that we would normally spend and stash it away? At the end of every 4 weeks we can all report what we have "saved" back? We will all have to remain truthful and honest on it, if we arent, then there is no purpose of doing it. Along with posting our savings, we can list what we cut out. Sound like a deal?
I am willing to start doing it. I think it would be amazing to see what we all have saved up in like 6 months time.
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we all do it; our unnecessary extras is food out. Not the expensive kind. A fancy luncheonette or Diner if you will. Ive been looking to cut back approx. $1,500- a year on this stuff.
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Being broke as a joke, I tend to keep my unnecessary spending to a minimum:
I pay 43 dollars a month for internet.... however, I use my Internet for phone and tv (mediaserver in living room TV w/ justin.tv and hulu as my TV enterainment)... so 43 for internet, phone and cable is the way I like to see it.
I pay 93 dollars a month for two cell phone lines and one blackberry plan. There's some uneeded expenses right there. My wife either loses or doesnt charge her phone 9/10 times, so I can cut off her line. The BB plan, is "uneeded" I guess, but this serves two purposes: emergency internet (tethering laptop) is I miss an internet payment and.. I can't do crap with out my blackberry.
Those are LITERALLY the only unnecessary expenses I have. The rest is spent on mortgage, child support, CAR PROBLEMS (which I have a lot of lately), food and utilities. I've gone out to eat about 3 times this summer (2 were at mcdonalds).
It sucks big time, but that's life!
BReady
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Great topic you started here Timmay. I think my biggest unneeded expense would be eating out. My wife and I both work 40 hour/week jobs and have two kids in karate and scouts, plus homework. We just don't have the time to cook, so we do a lot of eating out and carryout. We talk all the time about saving money by not eating out, and we have cut back, but we still eat out way to often. Plus, it's hard to find a healthy meal eating out.
Keep the tips coming, saving money is always a good thing.
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I moved to Ottawa away from my parents for 8 months. I received funding from university but it just wasn't too great. I was left with $271 exact for food. I wanted
to make some profit. >:D Therefore, I cooked at home (on my own) and usually spent somewhere between $90 and $130 for food per month. I tell you sometimes poverty can bring you wisdom. Now that I am back with my parents I spend a lot less on eating out because I'm used to not doing it. I absolutely love eating out (who doesn't :)), but man as Timmay pointed out it costs A LOT.
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We have a group of friends that we go out for fish fry with usually 2 or 3 times per month. One of the other couples suggested that what we do instead is have a pot luck at one of our houses to replace the fish fry. Normally one would think that a simple fish fry would be about 9 or 10 bucks per person but when you throw in that someone wants a baked potato instead of fries and a couple of rounds of drinks there goes $40-$50 a couple.....oh yeah, I forgot the tip.
I think I'm gonna resurrect the pot luck idea.
I'm gonna sit down with Mrs. Buddha and see what else we can trim.
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Seems like the biggest portion of our money goes towards eating out.
I was talking to my wife at lunch...and yes we had lunch from home. I forgot how good Fried Bologna tasted. Anyways, we talked about the topic I posted on here about saving money. One of her co-workers who sat near by said they on one of the weekend nights they have "theme night" her kids get to choose ahead of time what night and what theme. The themes range from , Italian, chinese, Greek, Mexican, American and etc. A few examples she gave was with American night, they would have the usual hamburgers/hotdogs with red and white plates/napkins , Mexican night would include a somberro. Better yet she said, with satelite radio you can tune in to music to fit your night. Everyone gets involved in preparing dinner as well.
I dunno, could be fun...might even be more fun if you were to invite a couple of friends over as guest as well.
If its an adult party, you can have a wine themed dinner, which would go great with a french, greek or italian theme....Have fun....what are your ideas?
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Great topic Timmay!!
One of our biggest spends was eating out. Like Schro, with a kid it can be had to cut out completely, but we've done a few things to help curb these costs.
1) We pack food. Sandwiches and fruit are easy to pack.
2) We now share food if we go to a restaurant. Portions are already huge. We usually get 1 appetizer, 1 main entree, and a large bowl of soup. My daughter loves soup, so that's usually her meal for $3 and my wife and I split the rest. This has cut our average bill from $40 to $50 down to $20 or $30.
Another great side effect of doing this is that you eat healthier.
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Better yet she said, with satelite radio you can tune in to music to fit your night. Everyone gets involved in preparing dinner as well.
That's another way of saving money w/ internet (which you probably have anyways) and a semi-old computer or modded xbox. I can stream just about any type of music in my living room w/ the mediaserver and in the garage w/ XBMC (when I BBQ). Sat radio is kind of cheap anyways, but I guess that could qualify at some savings.
BReady
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Like everyone else, we spend too much eating out. Additionally, my wife was spending way too much grocery shopping. This has been an issue for a while, and I'd taken over the grocery shopping a few times to prove that we could spend much less and still have everything we need.
I work a lot of hours so it's not always practical for me to do the shopping, but we seem to have solved the problem. One of the supermarkets in our town, Stop & Shop, has a new device available to shoppers that has helped a lot in keeping to our budget. This device allows each shopper to scan each item before putting it in your carriage and it keeps a running total. My wife watches the running total and tends to watch the prices much more. She also puts things back when she's over budget.
Items may be removed from the carriage and removed via the scanner. When checking out, the scanner is put into a dock and all the info is uploaded and totaled immediatley for checkout, making that process easier. Also, as items are scanned and put into carriage, she puts them right into one the re-usable fabric bags, so checkout doesn't require any bagging.
We've been saving quite a bit since my wife started using this device ...
Andrew
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As the cook and shopper in my house, I can tell you a weekly menu is the way to go. I know every night what I'm cooking and before I go to the store, I have a list of exactly what I need. I buy what's on the list...nothing more and nothing less. If my wife goes, she will spend 50% more and get half the food. Another tip - do not go to the store hungry. Avoid processed foods, too - you pay for the convenience, the quality and nutrition is less, and you can do better by making it yourself.
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Eating out costs a lot. Both my wife and I work, sometimes till 8pm. Grabbing food at the Diner is a lot easier than preparing it at a late hour. And: the Diner has the Yankee games on TV. So there!
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One area where my wife and I have known issues is: wholesale clubs. We have memberships to BJs, Sams, and costco. Somehow, our careful buying habits just go down the drain in those places. We're suckers for good deals and end up buying way more stuff than we need.
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One area where my wife and I have known issues is: wholesale clubs. We have memberships to BJs, Sams, and Costco. Somehow, our careful buying habits just go down the drain in those places...
Why have memberships to all three ? They are basically six of one, half dozen of another (I had all three at one time, too - Sam's was near home, Costco near the office, and BJ's had a software package I wanted). I'm own to one now !
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We usually eat out once or twice a month and we usually go to a local bar and grill at Happy Hour for 1/2 price specials on food. Being on the road I used to eat out daily but I cut that out and started bagging my lunch. I figure I am saving about $1500.00 a year that way. We also got rid of our land lines and use cell phones only.
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I went through a lot of these this summer to cut back on expenses.
I eliminated internet charges by convincing work that it was necessary in my job as an IT Director supporting 500 users. $63.16 per month saved.
I eliminated land line phones and rely on my company provided cell phone. Approximately $50 per month saved.
As a single person, I do not have more than a 13 gallon bag of trash per week, so I stopped trash pickup and got my emloyer's permission to bring the single bag to work and throw in the dumpster. $36 per month saved.
I paid the car off in June. $453 per month saved.
Refinanced the house from 6.375% to 5.25%. Saved $210 per month.
If I am watching TV, I do not have any lights on and I also do not listen through the stereo unless it is a really good movie. Turned off all unnecessary electronics. Saved about $40 per month on the electric bill.
Started washing clothes in cold water only. Saved $30 per month.
Will not turn on the AC unless it is over 85 degrees and we have only had a handful of 80 degree days this summer. Only three of them in August. Compounded into the electric bill savings.
Only buy gas on the weekend when there is a 5 cent discount per gallon. Every penny adds up. As my great grandfather stated, "Mind your pennies and the dollars mind themselves.
One other regular saving tip I use is to never spend anything smaller than a $5 bill. If you buy a pack of gum, it costs you $5. The change goes into savings. You would be amazed at how much money you can accumulate that way.
Over $853 saved per month not including the enforced $5 rule without modifying eating habits.
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One area where my wife and I have known issues is: wholesale clubs. We have memberships to BJs, Sams, and Costco. Somehow, our careful buying habits just go down the drain in those places...
Why have memberships to all three ?
That's just part of our illness. A good first step is cutting back on one membership. We're going to cut the Sam's membership. Baby steps ...
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This is a great topic. The month before I married my wife over 3 years ago, we went to see a Financial Counselor. Probably the best thing we did.. We adopted the cash envelope system. In this system we take out money for entertainment "eating out", gas money, and grocery money, we both get a little extra for two weeks for incidentals.. By that I mean a soda here and there.. We also have an account for bills, then another account that we transfer money to for Clothes, Auto Insurance, Vacation Fund, Oil changes, etc.. etc.. So when the time comes to do those things we dont have to worry where the money is coming from.. Also I must mention we do not have kids, so we do not have the challenges and expenses of someone with kids. All of our investments are accounted for...
Really the only spending that I have done which I havent really needed to is all of these "Great Products" you guys keep telling me about.. I justify this to my wife by saying "Honey, i dont get haircuts anymore, I dont buy shampoo. So I am entitled to this.." I wonder how long that will last??
It did suck that when my truck went south.. All we had saved in our car fund was enough money for a 2005 Honda Civic LX.. Oh well.. It does get great gas mileage..
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Eating out costs a lot. Both my wife and I work, sometimes till 8pm. Grabbing food at the Diner is a lot easier than preparing it at a late hour. And: the Diner has the Yankee games on TV. So there!
Same here ! Usually up at 5:00AM and back late at night...Eating out 3 times a day is normal and it keeps the day moving better....Have no ambition too cook and clean morning and night ....... ;)
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I paid the car off in June. $453 per month saved.
HEY ! It`s about time you got that 1971 Ford Pinto payed for !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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2006 Mustang. But close! First time I have ever owned a car outright since 1987. What a great feeling.
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Started washing clothes in cold water only. Saved $30 per month.
I've done a lot of the same stuff that you've done... BUT, certain things really need to be washed in warm or hot...
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Started washing clothes in cold water only. Saved $30 per month.
I've done a lot of the same stuff that you've done... BUT, certain things really need to be washed in warm or hot...
for me..towels and washclothes are a must for hot water...
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Mrs. Mvmnt and I went through our house and our finances when we moved in and we were able to cut out a lot of unnecessary spending. Our insurance dropped 110/mo by getting condo ins. with our car insurance (plus some other tweaks that happened to work out for us). we also instead of going to the store and getting a whole bunch of food, we go about once a day to the store to get what we want for dinner. that way we are able to make sure no food is wasted, and we only get what we need. weve cut down a lot on "oh, that would be nice to have!" and other wasteful habits. plus, every so often we have enough of uncooked leftovers that we can make a whole meal out of it.
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plus, every so often we have enough of uncooked leftovers that we can make a whole meal out of it.
its called "Pot Luck" lol
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plus, every so often we have enough of uncooked leftovers that we can make a whole meal out of it.
its called "Pot Luck" lol
whatever its called, its (usually) pretty good!
sometimes things taste better in your mind than they do in real life.... haha
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I'm not hitting Starbucks for a grande Americano (espresso + hot water) hardly at all anymore. I think I was spending about $60 a month or so there.
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It seems I'm constantly trimming the budget to make ends meet. Now I'm out of work so I trimmed further. This weekend my wife got hurt so she's out of work now. It's amazing how little it takes to survive when you don't have the money. Cable tv, high speed internet, mobile phones are nice to have but can easily be done away with if necessary. I couple of years in the mid 80's I went without any electricity at all and heated the place with a wood stove. I only fired up the water heater to take a shower. I'm not saying you should go this far but it can be done when you don't have the bucks to pay for those things.
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I gave up buying coffee at work. When the prices went to $.75 and 1.00 per cup (theoretically the money funds all-company events), I started getting large economy jars at Dollar General. It does the same trick (Caffeine Jolt!) and for $3, I go for about 14 days on what I was spending per Diem.
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To limit my unnecessary spending I ask myself what it falls under:
Is it a want?
Or,
Is it a need?
Anything that falls under want category gets put aside. I don't think of buying it. Needs are necessities, so obviously I look for the best bargain, shop around, make it instead of buying it, repair it if it's broke, use coupons, wait for sales etc. And at least once a month I'll let myself buy a small want.
The only exception is when it comes to investments, I always go for short term, low risk, high reward investments [for instance I bought 20 refurbished dells and flipped them in a day at 700% profit]
This philosophy has kept me out of the kind of debt a lot of my friends are in right now because they use their credit cards to buy all their big ticket want items. The only debt I have today is my student loan, which is dwindling rapidly.
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[for instance I bought 20 refurbished dells and flipped them in a day at 700% profit]
Now THAT IS IMPRESSIVE. How did you move them? Did you actually take possession of them and ship them or have them drop shipped from where you purchased them.
INFO, I need INFO. :D
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[for instance I bought 20 refurbished dells and flipped them in a day at 700% profit]
Now THAT IS IMPRESSIVE. How did you move them? Did you actually take possession of them and ship them or have them drop shipped from where you purchased them.
INFO, I need INFO. :D
I actually bought them from a university, got them into my apt via a cabbie van and made some calls. Easy breezy.
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I actually bought them from a university, got them into my apt via a cabbie van and made some calls. Easy breezy.
thats pretty slick. I have been thinking about flipping some electronics, especially after finding walmart is selling Dell Inspiron 537's with a 19"W monitor for $298.
A little huslin' never hurt anybody...
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I actually bought them from a university, got them into my apt via a cabbie van and made some calls. Easy breezy.
thats pretty slick. I have been thinking about flipping some electronics, especially after finding walmart is selling Dell Inspiron 537's with a 19"W monitor for $298.
A little huslin' never hurt anybody...
You can buy p4's and older dual cores in government auctions too O0 You actually pay per pound.
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Great topic so here is some tips that may get me baned from this board. :@`Stop spending all your money on the latest greatest thing for sly guys. It seems that for a lot of us being sly has become an obsession. Myself is included in this, I just spent $35.00 on an epilator to try to get the shadow free look that didn't work.
Head wipes from bald guyz are great - but baby wipes at the $.99 store do just as well
HeadSlick from HeadBlade is great - but conditioner from the $.99 store works just as well
HeadLube from HeadBlade is great - but Aloe Vera Gel from the $.99 store works just as well and gives you a better shine if kept in the refrigerator.
Just a few examples of how I have changed my shaving habits in order to save money. For those of you who shave at the sink shaving in the shower might help also. Headshed is the only product that I still pay money for because I have found nothing better yet for preparing my head. If any one knows of something better or just as good let me know I would love to try it.
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Great topic so here is some tips that may get me baned from this board. :@`Stop spending all your money on the latest greatest thing for sly guys. It seems that for a lot of us being sly has become an obsession. Myself is included in this, I just spent $35.00 on an epilator to try to get the shadow free look that didn't work.
Head wipes from bald guyz are great - but baby wipes at the $.99 store do just as well
HeadSlick from HeadBlade is great - but conditioner from the $.99 store works just as well
HeadLube from HeadBlade is great - but Aloe Vera Gel from the $.99 store works just as well and gives you a better shine if kept in the refrigerator.
Just a few examples of how I have changed my shaving habits in order to save money. For those of you who shave at the sink shaving in the shower might help also. Headshed is the only product that I still pay money for because I have found nothing better yet for preparing my head. If any one knows of something better or just as good let me know I would love to try it.
Shun the nonbeliever!!!!! SSSSHHHHHUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
(+5 Internet points if you know what that means. haha)
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I actually applied for work at a company that's within walking distance from my house. Unfortunately the company moved to Florida so I didn't get the job but I only used my truck to get back and forth to work. Having one less vehicle in the household to gas up, repair and insure would've saved a few bucks. I'm out of work right now anyway. It's amazing how little we can survive on.
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Great topic so here is some tips that may get me baned from this board. :@`Stop spending all your money on the latest greatest thing for sly guys. It seems that for a lot of us being sly has become an obsession. Myself is included in this, I just spent $35.00 on an epilator to try to get the shadow free look that didn't work.
Head wipes from bald guyz are great - but baby wipes at the $.99 store do just as well
HeadSlick from HeadBlade is great - but conditioner from the $.99 store works just as well
HeadLube from HeadBlade is great - but Aloe Vera Gel from the $.99 store works just as well and gives you a better shine if kept in the refrigerator.
Just a few examples of how I have changed my shaving habits in order to save money. For those of you who shave at the sink shaving in the shower might help also. Headshed is the only product that I still pay money for because I have found nothing better yet for preparing my head. If any one knows of something better or just as good let me know I would love to try it.
That's true cowboy. We do obsess about it.