Unlikely Frugality

Have you ever sat down and figured out how much money you spend on razors in a given year?

It seems that people who really watch the sales can get razors pretty cheap. Especially when the sales are combined with coupons. But with summer upon us, a house with many females can go through the razors, cheap or not.

I'm not usually one to advocate spending money on a gadget to save money. Especially when the investment is as steep as this one. But this has really worked for me and I'll tell you why.

For some reason it seems the more I shave my legs, the more I have to shave my legs. It was getting to the point a few years back that I had to shave every day or I would have stubble. It also seemed that the cheap razors just weren't doing the job anymore. And those expensive razors are, well, expensive. Plus it was tiring and time consuming to have to shave every single day.

(As an aside, I can't believe that we can now pay up to $3 for a single disposable razor?!)

Anyway, I had read about epilators. I had also read the horror stories about epilators. But I decided to take the plunge and try it.


This is the one I ended up getting.

Like I said, the initial investment was steep. Approximately $100. But if I was conservatively just going through $5 in razors a month (and there was a time that I was spending more than that, for sure), it would take less than 2 years for this to pay for itself.

The fact is, I've used this same one for over 3 years now and it's still going strong.

But maybe more importantly, it's not only a money saver, it's a time saver.

I now epilate approximately once every 2 weeks. It takes about 10-15 minutes. To be totally fair, I have to say that I still shave about once a month as well. I do it for the exfoliation. I've heard that just using some type of loofah to exfoliate works just as well, though I've not tried that.

But isn't it painful? At this point, not at all.

The trick to using an epilator (for the first time) is this:

Do NOT wait and grow the hair out a little before the first use. Shave first. The next day, use the epilator. The next day, use it again. Etc.

The thing is, there is not a lot of hair growth in just a day, so it's not too painful at all. And within a couple of weeks of using it every day, you're pretty much hair free.

What does it feel like?

To be honest, it felt like little, teeny needle pricks at first to me. But like plucking eyebrows, it gets to the point that you hardly notice it.

And that's my off the wall frugal tip for today.

For more frugal ideas, be sure to check out Crystals Blog