Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Inspired by ERE, I have just cut my own hair for the first time. Buzz cut. Turned out just fine, and I enjoyed doing it. Probably won't ever go to the hair parlor again.
How do you all cut your hair?

My mom does it (I'm 18/still living at home, so this isn't weird . I get it super short, then let it grow out for 6-12 months. I'm not sure how I'll handle this when I move out, maybe get it cut at the holidays? Or go into Supercuts or somewhere similar twice/thrice a year? Get a SO who doesn't mind chopping it off? I'm not sure I could do it myself and have it look okay.
I'm a girl, btw, so the growout doesn't look so weird. Also, a buzz isn't really an option I want to look into

My hair grows quick and I don't like it long. So I need cuts every 6-7 weeks. Here in Finland a cheap haircut (for men) costs about 34 dollars. So I get my SO to buzz it for me with a clipper. Every once in a while, it grows out looking bad enough that I need a professional. So if I am traveling then, I get a cut wherever I am. Even USA works out cheaper - it is all relative! lol

My wife has cut my hair for 10 years or so using Wheller clippers (same set) I looked at a new one a year ago and they are junk now. I guess like most things, the older it is, more than likely it is of better quality.

I bought a clipper set at Target 5 years ago and started experimenting with cutting my own hair with a few hiccups along the way, as expected. I'd go down to the local barber shop and have them fix it, if need be. Now that I'm in my mid-20's, my hair line is not what it once was so for the last two years I've been doing a #1 guard on my whole head every week or two. Girls love it, and I never have a bad hair day. It's kind of my trademark hairstyle to alot of people now--I'm CRAZY particular about how I do it. I even get other guys asking me if I have tips for them to buzz their head better.
If you're gonna buzz your own head like I do, you can't just buzz it and be done or you'll look like a fool. I have a small sideburn trimmer I use for "blending" so I don't look like a tennis ball. The guard comes off of it and I can clean up the edges around my ears and whatnot. Then I have a small hand mirror I use to make sure I didn't miss any patches or have a few small hairs sticking up. After that I cleanup, and hop straight into the shower. Lastly, I have gotten extremely proficient at shaving my own neck with a good line on it. It takes practice, I just face away from my bathroom mirror and look into my hand mirror while shaving with my Mach3. The time invested for me to learn all of this pales in comparison to how many haircuts I would've paid for--especially for how often people at lower end salons botch your $15+tip haircut. No thank you!

How long is a #1 guard in fractional inches or millimeters?

I regularly cut my own with a set of clippers back in high school. More recently, a co-worker/friend was going through the salon academy, so I could get cuts from her for $5 while she built up the required experience to get through school. After she graduated, though, she wanted $20+ for cuts, so I had to wean myself off of those. (To her credit, she was really good) Now I have a set of clippers on my wish list for Christmas.

If I tried to cut my own hair I would probably be short at least one ear. I pay my barber $10.00 for a haircut, and it is worth it.

Fun fact about me... there have only ever been two people who have cut my hair. My mom and myself.
I actually didn't realize this until I was 17 and my mom suggested that I get a "professional" to cut my hair for my highschool senior pictures. That's when I realized that I had actually never had a paid haircut and decided to keep the streek going. Shortly afterwards I began experimenting with cutting my own hair so that I could do it myself in college.
At first my haircuts were pretty plain but I've gotten better. I think the two things that I've learned to do that make the biggest difference is layering with the buzzer so that the hair on the side of my head is shorter than the hair on the top and learning how to box the hair on the back of my head which gives the haircut a nice finished look and keeps the trimming around the ears from looking odd.

I buzz my hair with no guard using a $15 Remington beard trimmer. It works well on the facial hair and the head hair.
A low-maintenance hair style is the way to go.

@jacob-A #1 is 1/8 of an inch, or ~3.175mm. A.K.A. very short. No need to worry about taking time to dry your hair, that's for sure. Side benefit--it also saves me a bundle on shampoo. I buy a tiny bottle once or twice a year and use less than the size of my pinky nail each time.

I'm not a fan of the buzz look on me. I've learned to cut my own with scissors.
I do buzz the sizes with a ~.4 inch or 1-2cm... Everything else I get with scissors. Took probably a half a dozen tries to get OK at it. First cuts took almost an hour, but now I'm down to about 20 mins.
Had some goofy things going on in the beginning, but now they look like pro cuts to the casual observer.

@Jacob, my barber told me that the guards aren't standardized (perhaps he is wrong), though I think that a common idea is that a 1 is 1/8 inch left on, and a 2 is 2/8 inch left on, etc..., Also there is a difference between a 1 blade and a 1 guard.
I stopped trying to get consistency-- it always grows back, and when it doesn't it won't need to be cut any more.
Several years ago, I provided free haircuts to homeless men at the Salvation Army. With no formal training, this often meant the buzz cut, but I'd try to do whatever they wanted. You'd be surprised how grateful people were to have someone cut their hair.

Barbering may be one of those skills that, like bicycle repair, could prove useful as a barter-worthy service when TEOTWAWKI hits. I cannot cut my own, but I did learn to cut others. I'll have to look into the licensing requirements if I want it to be a compensated service.
As for my own hair, it is fairly robust and curly. I go to one of those cheap mall joints about three times a year for a 2 on the sides and 3 on top buzz cut. Within four months it will be a white man's afro similar to the dude on the old TV show "Room 222." So the annual cost is less than $50, which requires less than $2K in ERE captial to sustain.

I barter for mine - sister-in-law cuts my hair/I do her tax return. Much better deal for me, but I usually tip or give her a Christmas gift.

I just shave my head

I bought some nice scissors a few years ago and I used to cut my partner's hair but he started buzzing it shorter with clippers instead so he doesn't need my help anymore. I used to make him cut mine as well but he was always worried about making it perfect so it would take way too long. I decided to explore my options and found a few methods that work really well so I can do it myself in just a few minutes.
The easiest way is to flip my hair upside down and tie it then hack it off. I know it sounds awful but I think it passes as a fairly decent haircut. (As seen in this video: HOW TO: Layered haircut in 5 minutes.)
I've also tried the CreaClip, which can do a few different simple styles really quickly, including a little guide for side bangs. Right now I;m using a combination of both methods, just banding it over my head and cutting it then brushing it back & having my husband use the clip to make it slightly less drastic in the back.

My dad has been cutting my hair all my life. I used a Flowbee for a few years, but that was just to cut the bulk of it before my dad finished up the edges. He cuts his own hair, too. Of course, I get it cut short enough now that I could probably learn to do it myself. Fading in the back and sides seems to be where the "art" comes in.

After I saw the bill may years back for DW to get our fuzzy cat a summer grooming (>$60) we invested in quality buzzer (~$40) that we've used on her ever since. At the time I was getting a periodic (every 6-8 weeks) professional barber cut ($10 + $2 tip) and about 2 years ago started using the cat's buzzer on myself with DW's help. My style is pretty basic and I'm sure no one can tell it's a DIY cut.

Once I moved across the country to join a traveling carnival.

I packed just the absolute essentials into a backpack and lived in an RV with extended family.

One day my aunt's husband went to get a haircut, and I went too. It was my first time having it done. When I got the bill I was in disbelief! How can they possibly charge more for one single simple haircut than it costs to buy a medium quality pair of clippers?!?!?!?

Even though I already had a pair back home, I bought another one for my stay in the mid-west. Which worked out well, because after I returned, the old ones ended up breaking anyway. The clippers I bought during my carnival days are still going strong, 7 years later.