cost cutting

Lately we've been looking for ways to save money. Starting Liam shaving at age 4 is not one of them, but cutting hair at home is. (Very needed as this photo shows!) For most of Liam's life, I have paid $20 a shot to have a stylist cut his hair every eight weeks or so. Most would think this price excessive for a boy's haircut but this isn't just any boy hair. Liam has some of the thickest and most beautiful hair of any boy I know. It takes a stylist longer to give his hair a trim than it does to totally style mine.

I have had a little experience cutting hair. In college I gave a potential love interest a ROTC haircut. It didn't go well (although he dated me anyway). I also had my own hair chopped off in kindergarten by a fellow student - from ponytails to pixie in minutes flat. Needless to say I don't have a lot of confidence around scissors.

But $120 a year is a small chunk of change we could spend elsewhere, so I followed a great blog tutorial on how to cut a little boy's hair and gave it a try. Liam was such a great sport, sitting still for over a half hour while I repeated over and over, "Just about finished, honey." He sat happily listening to "his" music (female-fronted progressive metal), anticipating the Twix bar he would get when the job was completed. It was a pretty special time and the result was, well, not too shabby. That's the thing about cutting expenses - sometimes you end up with a whole lot more than money in the bank.