Talk about it!

I was raised that it is taboo to talk about money . . . how much we make, how much we spend, how much debt someone is carrying.  Well, in writing this blog I pretty much threw that right out of the window, but I still find myself closing down a bit when people are trying to talk to me about money.  I am throwing out the savings ideas left and right, but today when I am getting my hair cut, the hair stylist is talking to me about saving money because she is saving for a car.  She starts to tell me a bit about how she ran up some credit cards at 18 years old and is still paying them off.  Did I jump in and start giving her some of my ideas, did I at least offer that I had done the same thing when I was 18 years old?  Nope, I just sat there and listened.  I did offer that I was writing a blog on the subject, she seemed interested, but for some reason I did not say another word about it.  I swear that there is a little person that sits on my shoulder saying, "You shouldn't be talking about this, it's not right".  I would like to squish that little guy, because here I sit regretting that I didn't pipe up and try to help her. 

The point today is to talk about it.  Talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to anyone who will listen, because many of us have been taught not to talk about finances and money.  BUT . . . I have found that my friends have some great tips, and each one does things a little different that if we put all the ideas into a plan of action, we could dig ourselves right out of debt.  One of my friends uses Ebates.com when she buys diapers from diapers.com.  She tells me that the diapers there are the cheapest around, and they offer free shipping.  By using Ebates, she gets money back just for purchasing the items that she needs to buy anyway.  My other friend collects the Pampers rewards and earns enough to get a diapers.com gift card from time to time, and even gets the rewards from her daycare to earn more.  Hey, if no one is using them, why shouldn't she?? 

As a side note, to save money lately on my beauty routine, I have stopped highlighting my hair cold turkey.  I have been coloring and getting my hair done on a monthly basis since I was 15, and now is the time to stop.  Just by getting my hair only cut and styled today instead of highlighting it, I saved over $100.  Since I would normally spend over $150.00 at the salon to get my hair done, I'm now spending more like $50!  Super bonus, I am going to be posting a note next week of some of the salons in the area and their prices.  We all know that it's so hard to comparison shop for your hair-do, so we just pay what they tell us to.  Today that stops, let's be informed Bluffton consumers instead!