Self-Sufficient Shaving Strategies?

[morrisnk]

Hi everyone,

I just finished reading a blog about making hobbies self-sufficient (ie, making them pay their own way). Make Your Hobby Pay Its Way

I know that my wet-shaving hobby is supported directly from my expense category which, I'll admit, makes all my various acquisition disorders hard to bear. I suppose I could make more money and/or reduce spending and reallocate, but I was more curious if anyone has been able to make their wet-shaving hobby self-sufficient (or close to it), supporting their hobby by the hobby, and what kinds of strategies, activities, ideas, and/or secrets you'd like to share.

-Nathan

[scoopster]

No big secret here. A lot of folks hunt down vintage razors at flea markets, estate sales, yard sales, goodwill shops, even good deals on Ebay. They then restore them and sell them for potentially much, much, much higher dollars. To do this you have to do a lot of reading, lurking, etc to know what is a good deal and what kind of dollars you can turn a razor around for. You'll frequently hear folks posting about scoring vintage Gillettes for two to five bucks at some venue (yard sale, etc). These same razors cleaned up with good pictures can then sell for much higher dollars here or on Ebay - $25, $35, $50. The sky is the limit if you find a rare collectible Gillette. Even the very common razors that Gillette made millions of sell for decent dollars if cleaned and posted properly.

Happy reading and happy hunting!

P.S. If you find some killer deals pass, on some of that savings to your brothers at B&B!

[JackinNC]

Wow, that's a good question, and one that can be approached multiple ways. You can either pay for them by using your hobby knowledge to earn money (pusherman), or you can use your hobby to generate savings. Until I read your post, I hadn't realized how easily my "hobbies" pay for themselves.

• My coffee roasting hobby is paid out of our grocery budget.
• My bicycling hobby is paid by our transportation budget. By riding to work, I've saved thousands of dollars. And this year, my $350 commuter bike will cross 10,000 miles with nary a drop of gas!
• And my wet shaving hobby, too, will be covered by savings in the house budget. With new razors and blades, I expect to break even this year. But the $65 in blades I'd buy next year for a Gillette Excel will be replaced with probably about $20-30 in DE's.

And the wet shaving hobby offers great opportunities for really nice, yet relatively modest gifts for this "so hard to buy for" guy. :-)

So, as long as I keep my wits about me in the BST, I should be fine. I didn't do so well last time (came for one, bought two). And have you seen all the beautiful Brits that have been there in the last couple weeks? :-)

Take care
Jack

[goodsamaritan]

In another month mine will have paid for itself in razor blades alone. Then again, I was going through a $25 dollars a month in cartridges. Now I figure it costs me about 3$ a month in shaving supplies.

Any cool toys I buy comes out of a spending money account I have. (wife and I split any fun money 50/50) If it turns out to be something that I use on a daily basis then I will reimburse myself from our household budget. We both do this with things we would like to try. I feel it cuts down on impulse buys, and motivates me to make my selections more carefully.

[goodsamaritan]

And the wet shaving hobby offers great opportunities for really nice, yet relatively modest gifts for this "so hard to buy for" guy. :-)

I like the way this guy thinks...

[Doc4]

My wetshaving hobby not only pays for itself, it actually turns a tidy profit.



... just not for me.

[Eagle]

Short of scoopsters idea of selling razors, I don't know that you can make wetshaving self-sufficient. You can however make a before and after comparison and consider the savings in money spent as paying for itself. I feel this way about Netflix. We like to watch movies as cheap entertainment. At four movies a week for $25 per mo. each rental costs approx. $1.56. Contrast that with $4.20 per rental at Blockbuster and we realize considerable savings. A good puck of shaving soap lasts me anywhere from 6 to 12 mos. At $20 I'm saving good money vs. OTC cans of gook every 3 or 4 weeks. Of course this only works if you can resist any of the various AD's associated w/ DE shaving. Fortunately I don't feel the need to go overboard with the tiny exception that I prob. purchased several more AS's than I needed. But at 5 bucks each it's only a short term loss . My 2 cents.

[dpm802]

I haven't done the math to figure out exactly how much I am spending on shaving ... but even if I'm losing money at this, its not much.

I'm on a fairly tight budget, and have become quite frugal in recent years. I've been into purchasing wet-shaving gear since late March, although I got interested in it several months before that.

Then again, even if I'm trying to be frugal, I'm not a skin-flint. If I don't indulge myself in the finer things in life, there's nobody else on the planet who's going to indulge for me.

I save a lot of money by making my own cigarettes ... I can produce a pack of gourmet smokes for just $1.40 or so, so that frees up a lot for other things.

I'm figuring that I've spent roughly $150 in the last 4 months, and I've got 4 DE Razors (plus one I gave away in a PIF-kit,) a single-edge GEM, a mint-condition Rolls Razor on layaway at an antique shop, perhaps 10 different brands of blades, 3 brushes, and more creams and soaps other consumables than I can easily count.

I get as much fun out of the shopping experience as I do the purchase ... reading about gear here on B&B, scouring the antique shops and searching stuff out online is relaxing, even if I don't buy anything.

[Suzuki]

If all you want is a couple of razors and a modest collection of soaps, AS products, colognes, then simply having switched to to a DE from cartridges will likely fund such modest aspirations.

If you want a collection of Penhaligons, Floris, and other high end products, then you'll need to sell stuff at a profit.

Short of getting lucky and finding a mint 195 at a garage sale the most money comes from restoring/rescaling vintage straights - you can often find good blades for very little money (I've purchased excellent W&B and Rogers blades on e-bay for $5 - $10) - properly cleaned up and rescaled, they'd easily fetch $75 - $100. A more generic brand can easily sell or $40 - $50 if cleaned and made shave ready. However, there's a fair bit of skill involved in doing this.

The less skill-intensive route is, as said above, find good DEs for cheap, clean them up and sell them for a profit. I don't do this often, but occasionally I'll buy a lot off of e-bay to get one or two razors and will sell the others - I always sell on the BST and for a reasonable price. The best I've ever done is a lot for $100 that included 4 NOS lady injectors and 3 NOS adjustable injectors, plus a couple of TRAC II handles, 50 TRAC blades and about 100 NOS injector blades. In other words, I got very lucky, but these things do happen if you're patient and know what to look for. If you have a good eye, know how to polish up razors and are willing to spend a few hours every now and again cleaning razors, you can easily make enough to fund a mild AD or a high-end brush.


The other thing I do is sell off stuff I don't use regularly to fund other purchases. For example, I sold off a bunch of straights I wasn't using to fund my B&B limited. I also periodically sell off soaps, colognes, AS products I'm not using - this keeps the shave den manageable and keeps money in the kitty.

[GoTeeGuy]

No big secret here. A lot of folks hunt down vintage razors at flea markets, estate sales, yard sales, goodwill shops, even good deals on Ebay. They then restore them and sell them for potentially much, much, much higher dollars. To do this you have to do a lot of reading, lurking, etc to know what is a good deal and what kind of dollars you can turn a razor around for. You'll frequently hear folks posting about scoring vintage Gillettes for two to five bucks at some venue (yard sale, etc). These same razors cleaned up with good pictures can then sell for much higher dollars here or on Ebay - $25, $35, $50. The sky is the limit if you find a rare collectible Gillette. Even the very common razors that Gillette made millions of sell for decent dollars if cleaned and posted properly.

+1

Over the past 2yrs, I have made a tide profit from selling vintage Gillette DE's. (That's after deducting the cost of razors, blades, creams, soaps, aftershave, etc.) And I don't even re-sell the razors at inflated prices -- typically, prices lower than eBay.

I don't really think of the profit actually -- this is a hobby to me; I enjoy the hunt for razors. If it wasn't for SWMBO, household expenses, and a 15month old daughter, I'd probably have kept every razor I ever found.

[Laz]

I think that many of the shops we support have also learned how to turn a profit from a hobby. It workd out well for all. We get quality items and they provide wonderful products.

[Chuckaluck]

I think that many of the shops we support have also learned how to turn a profit from a hobby. It workd out well for all. We get quality items and they provide wonderful products.

+ 1. I have saved a bundle on DE blades, as compared to what I was spending for Fushion cartridges, but I have a major AD for soaps, creams, aftershaves etc.....

[koso]

One can also have one hobby pay for another.

I found my way here from a poker strategy forum. There was a post in its 'Barbershop' equivalent room linking to B&B; here I am now thoroughly enjoying wetshaving.

I won $180 this weekend, which covered all my wetshaving expenses to date plus a little bonus for SWMBO.

I'm not advocating gambling. I've been playing and studying poker for 10 years, if I hadn't married SWMBO I might have played on TV by now . It's just something I've gotten good at as another hobby that is paying for my indulgence in this hobby.

Take a hard look around your attic or garage. There may very well be something there non-shaving related that could be sold on Ebay to pay for your *AD habit.