Q&A Tuesday: Habitual Non-Frugal Splurges

You mention things here or there on your blog like how you’re a Pampers snob or how much you like the Pepperidge Farm cookies (which I also adore!) so I’d love to have you do a post on your habitual splurges (i.e. un-frugal habits). I think it’d be fun to hear! – Chelsea

From the comments and emails I get, I sometimes think people get the impression I’m such a tightwad, I don’t ever splurge on anything.

Quite the contrary! My husband and I save money in many areas so that we can splurge in a few areas.

In fact, we actually budget for splurges. We’ve found it’s so much more enjoyable to splurge on something when you have planned to do so and have the money allotted in your budget.

{And yes, I know that for some people, the concept of “splurging” means you throw all caution to the wind and budgets out the window. Well, we just can’t enjoy spending money unless we know we can afford something. Call us weird, but we’ve found the boundaries of a budget actually give us a lot more freedom!}

So, in addition to being a Pampers “snob” and loving Pepperidge Farm cookies (my husband buys them for me for almost every birthday and Mother’s Day since I can’t bear to pay the price tag on them as a matter of course!), I have another regular non-frugal splurge.

You might want to make sure you’re sitting down when you read this, because it’s going to seem very anti-Money Saving Mom®. In fact, I wondered if my readers would lose all faith in me if they found this vice out.

However, if you promise you won’t hold it against me, I’ll tell you about my very non-frugal habit: I get my hair highlighted and cut at a nice salon.

There, I confessed.

I know that getting my hair done is as polar opposite to frugality as it comes. I’m sure you’d expect me to cut my own hair with a hair-cutting kit I purchased at the thrift store.

For years, I actually did cut my own hair. It was free and it worked – sort of.

However, since I didn’t really know how to cut hair and wasn’t all that good at it, I spent a lot of time fussing with it as a result. I have very thick, straw-straight hair and I felt like I was constantly fighting it.

But I refused to pay the prices that salons wanted to charge because I felt like I was saving so much money doing it at home. Well, yes, I was saving a lot of money, but I was also spending a LOT of time trying to tame my mop of hair.

When Jesse was almost finished with law school, we scraped together some money and I went and got my hair done at a nicer salon. It was the first time I’d ever done something like this in my entire life and I struggled with a lot of guilt over it – even though we had budgeted for it.

When I got home, though, I had an epiphany: there are some things which are worth paying a higher price tag for, if you can afford it in your budget.

All these years I’d fought with my hair, trying to will it into submission and spending countless fruitless hours doing so. After one trip to a salon, my hair seemed like it took on a whole new personality.

It actually started working with me – not against me. All of a sudden, it was a breeze to fix and take care of. And I saved so much time: I could wash and blow dry my hair twice a week and that was pretty much it.

So from then on, we’ve made room in our budget for me to get my hair done. Yes, it’s not cheap, but it’s worth it to us. After all, fewer bad hair days means a much happier mama. And that’s worth quite a bit, isn’t it?! 

What about you? What’s your regular non-frugal splurge?