I am an acronym person also and really like this one. I actually laminated a wallet sized card of it as a daily reminder to myself. Every time I open my wallet there is this bright yellow card grabbing my attention.

Thanks Lynn…and JD!

The hairdresser definitely would not have said, “you know, short hair isn’t for you. You should keep it just as it is”. You have to make that call for yourself. I say don’t trust the expert unless the expert is you.

Not to sound to jaded with hairdressers- I love mine and she gives me a 50% discount when I walk out of the salon with wet hair rather than styled hair. Just don’t trust someone who needs your money to also keep your best interests at heart.

Another short hair person here. I have thick hair, and walking around with wet hair most of the time gets old: after a shower, after a run, etc. Getting a good haircut every 6-8 weeks is one of my few luxuries now. The trick is to find someone very skilled who finds out your lifestyle requirements and the look you are going for BEFORE they cut your hair. The stylists at quicky cutting places tend to be new with limited experience.

Mine, for example are: a little product, air dry, fluff, wash 2-4x week, depending on activity level or season. Looks better dirty than clean, and I can miss a trim without wanting to cut my own hair. I want to look urban, but not so urban that I scare the other suburban moms or potential employers. When I had little kids, I had to be able to chase my kids without my hair getting in my line of vision. Did I mention that I have thick, cowlicky hair with a neckline that grows UP?

You mentioned a 20 minute cutting time — a quick cut doesn’t define a good stylist. My guy takes up to 45 minutes of cutting with 5-10 minutes of styling, including drying time. That haircut sits beautifully and looks good with almost no effort on my part, other than the regular cuts. Worth every penny.

@ DCH – You are very welcome! Glad you enjoyed the article. I did catch the feature on Lifehacker (it’s one I follow) and Baker also was mentioned on Consumerist for his CouchSurfing article:

http://consumerist.com/5334927/couchsurfing-can-help-you-save-money-and-make-friends-while-traveling

Perhaps you already saw this (or see web traffic being referred), but I thought I would mention here that this article was featured on another blog I follow, lifehacker. Here’s the link:

http://lifehacker.com/5335806/apply-the-wealth-acronym-to-make-smart-purchases

Is this the first (or only) “audition” article to get such a referral/re-posting on another popular blog, like lifehacker? I haven’t noticed any others on lifehacker, but perhaps this is rather common on other sites I don’t particularly follow…

Just more evidence that this was a great post! Thanks again, Lynn!

@RB #14: Wow, so THIS must be what the 1940s were like! You and your sexist friend need to realize that women are people too and that hair is just hair, and get with the times — unless YOU’D be okay with your significant other dumping YOU over a haircut. (No? Well then, there’s your answer.) I can’t believe you thought your comment, much less wrote it in public. I know PF blogs tend to skew conservative, but sheesh.

I have to say it’s an adorable cut, and it lead to great insight on your part.

I had a similar haircut experience last Spring and it turned out to be a really wise investment. As it’s grown out it looked fantastic, and it’s been well over 6 months since my last cut.

I think it’s my new cheap way of maintaining a hair style I like. Cut it all off and let it grown for 6 months or a year, rinse and repeat.

I also think of haircuts like oil changes. My old mechanic recommended every 3,000 miles, but my manual says every 7,500. My hair stylist says every 6 weeks I say if I’m looking for maintenance, it’s every 10 weeks.

There’s one more cost benefit to long hair…you spend less on cat toys. :p As soon as I sit or lie down, the cats are all over me, batting at my head.

Long hair can be WAY more low-maintenance than short. And it’s easier to get out of my way when I need that.

Also, Matt, the idea of creating a weighted scoring to each category/question is a great idea! Especially for as large a purchase decision as a car! Now I just have to figure out how to best rank the WEALTH points…

I’ve been going back and forth for a while on whether or not to sell my car and get something more practical. Just as a quick background, I’m a gear head and a car guy. Little did I know that I’ve been wrestling with these WEALTH questions all along. I’ve been trying to decide between my car and two other choices – one more practical and one about the same as my current one but just different.

So I added a weighting system to the WEALTH questions (ie: I think that happiness is more important than ego) then rated each category from 1-10 (bad to good) and summed the scores to give me one “Purchase Score” between 1 and 10 for each item. Turns out the practical car ends in the lead with 5.95, followed by the other car at 5, and lastly my current car at 4.4. This might actually aid in my decision. I’ve been going over the pros and cons in my head, but it’s pretty clear once you see them in real numbers on paper.

This model could be used for any purchase. I’m an engineer, so I like seeing the actual numbers. I will continue to use this for all my major purchases.

Great job!

For instance, today I am wearing an outfit to work that I normally wouldn’t, but I’m having so much fun with it and feel confident and professional. It’s just a matter of a skirt but it’s more than I normally spend on an article of clothing ($44, and I did get a free white button down shirt with it as it was a 2-for-1 sale).

I debated a skirt purchase because I normally don’t wear them, but after I thought about it for a while, I realized I don’t because I don’t like heels. So I thought I would try a flats-tights-skirts combo. Already had the flats and tights and found the perfect skirt after a few months of searching.

I’ve tried something new and it’s a success story. I think because I put various skirts through the W-E-A-L-T-H test and after about the 4th test realized I may be ready to commit. I was patient and when I found the right skirt it passed the test and now I’m having fun with a new look.

I’ve used my own variation of W-E-A-L-T-H for a while but would hate to think that overuse of it would kill creativity and new fun experiences. Just a thought.

Of course I can sympathize with haircut remorse. I recently got a haircut that was a change from the style I had for the last ~12 years. I’m 24, so thats a long time. My old hairstyle was a blunt cut. Wash and go, brush once dry. If I had a bad hair day I’d put it up, no big deal. The new style is layered all the way though and I have bangs now. While the cut looked good coming home from the salon even then I didn’t feel like it was me. Something about the cut doesn’t resonate with me. It doesn’t air dry well and I just let it air dry anyway. Partially because I don’t have the time to deal with it and partially because I have no hair skills. I can spend 20 mins on it and it doesn’t really look better, just different. Putting it up looks cute, but I still have to worry about what the bangs are doing. The bangs are always all over the place. When it’s down due to the layering the longest part poofs thanks to my naturally wavy hair. I wanted a change so when I explained what I was willing to do (wash and go) he wanted to give me the same cut I already had, but I had come to salon to get something different. Despite the warnings I let him give me a cut that needed maintenance. The questions is now what??? I don’t want to go back to my old hairstyle, but I don’t like this one. It’s been 3 months since I got my haircut, so I need to do something with it (stupid bangs). Do I go back to the same hairstylist (who came with amazing recommendations) and try to tweak the cut more to my liking or try to find someone else.

One of my problems comes in the fact that I have had horrible, I mean REALLY horrible experiences with hair dressers. I have a lot of long hair and it usually takes 1-2 hours for a cut/trim (depending on how long it’s been since the last one) and my usual bill ends up being something like $75 w/tip. Yes, I could go and get an $8 haircut but I just don’t have trust in those places after everything that’s happened. It has now been 8 months since my last haircut and I definitely need a new one, but it’s so hard justifying that cost. I try to put it down in the maintenance cost of things, haircuts = healthy hair, and sometimes I try comparing it to friends who spend hundreds of dollars a year on style, color, product, etc. I think I’m going to use WEALTH to see if the pro’s outweigh the cons. Thanks!

@ Debbie M – If you changed the “research” to something starting with an “s” you would have CASH

@ Avistew – To the hairdresser’s credit, she did not push product on me. She explained what it was and mentioned that there are many brands out there. It was my idea to go with what she used and sold there.

@ Marcy – Thanks for your opinion. I have learned a lesson (as shared here) and have moved on. But spending some time to reflect on my purchase and share my experience here will not only save $25. The lesson learned here has the potential to save a lot more money over the course of my life and maybe help others save some money as well since I was able to share it here. To me, spending a few hours to reflect on what happened and write this article was worth it.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

Anyway, love the WEALTH acronym and I think I’ll try to teach it to my children…one is trying to save money for an Xbox 360 that I don’t want him to buy and I’m gently trying to talk him away from it…maybe this will help!

No, you’re not the only one. I also found this article painful, pedantic and far too long. Whilst I agree it’s important to consider how you’re spending your money and realise the difference between a want and a need, spending hours beating myself up over a $25 haircut and developing a long winded process to assess every dollar one spends is just ridiculous.

Of course everybody makes money mistakes along the way but I find the level of introspection on this purchase WAAY over the top. Surely you just realise you’ve make an error in judgement, learn the lesson and move on.

It’s great that everybody is trying to be supportive of all those trying out for the writer position but personnally I do not want to read any more of Lyn’s work. I find her ideas unsophisticated and overly fussy about very simple concepts.