Being a woman who loved and I mean loved her luxury manicure and pedicure appointments for years during eras when she was more gainfully employed and prior to the economy tanking, I understand the therapeutic nature of nail salon addiction. Having perfect nails and perfect toes is just this mental thing that makes a woman feel good about herself and contributes literally to her ability to keep her sanity. Much like hair salon appointments and hair waxing however, this beauty procedure (nails) has become an expendable luxury for many women during tough financial times. Face facts ladies, you just don’t need perfect and beautiful nail polished hands and feet to survive.

I gave up long garish nails years ago. Bright colors and long claw length acrylic nails have pretty much been out of style for a while. More importantly, long bright false nails actually make you look older by drawing attention to aging hands. In recent years, I moved more towards a clean perfect look with more neutral colors but that doesn’t mean I gave up going to the local nail salon, I just toned it down on the hand nail colors. Darker colors do still look good on toes if you are older but have pretty feet though. OPI brand nail polish has a pretty color palette for women’s nail polish colors. My main fetish at the nail salon when I was still going was always getting somewhat short yet perfect looking acrylic nails with the white French tips. I liked clean French tip toes too with maybe a little diamond accent design on the big toe. French tips give you that perfect together look while not drawing unwanted attention to signs of aging on your hands and legs.

Well, I just could not afford to pay to keep up the nail appointments anymore. The nail salon close to my home was too expensive, and the less expensive salons were further away and even less convenient. Not to mention the fact that being a mother of four gave me zero time to even get to the salon. Surprisingly, I felt a few really positive effects from not having to go and have not missed it nearly as much as I thought. I have to admit that every once in a while I will see a perfect French tipped lady with twinkle rhinestone accent toes and I feel just a twinge of jealousy. But it doesn’t happen often. Basically I am over the whole nail toe thing and not regretting saying buh-bye to the ongoing never ending expense of it all.

You save money

Looking back on it, I could not believe how much money I was spending on regular manicures and pedicures. A new set of acrylic nails was costing me around $40-$45 nails, oops I mean dollars. It was costing around me $20 to fill the nails and $20 to have my toes done. Add to that an occasional broken tip fix and I was dropping between $40 and $50 every few weeks. I tried to save money and cut corners without quitting the manis and pedis completely. At first, I started stretching out the amount of time I was going between fills. I used to go every two weeks then I pushed it to three weeks. The only problem with that was that my nails look scraggly with big fill gaps the last week. Not only that, I was having more breaking incidents that third week and having to hijack myself into the salons for chip fixes which threw off the nail re growth cycle status of that finger nail from the other nine nails.

Then, I tried to cut back by going to a nail salon in a different neighborhood. If I was willing to drive off the beaten path I could get the fill done for closer to $15 and then if I skipped the relaxing massage chair pedicure and just got a basic pedicure then that cost me only $15. Still though, I was driving, inconveniencing myself, and paying $30 not including tips and gratuity. I even tried shaving my tips to the manicurists back to around $2 flat instead of doing it as a percentage of total cost. The manicurists probably didn’t appreciate that cheap maneuver. Finally, I just quit doing the acrylics because I did not have the time and more particularly the money to keep paying for it. As soon as I got rid of the acrylics though, I realized that keeping color polish on natural non-acrylic nails was a losing battle. It chipped too fast. Thus doing my own hands at home where at the very least I could paint the chipped part became more practical.

So now I was down to just having pedicures. Pretty soon I realized that I seriously only needed good pedicures during the hot months of spring and summer when they would show. But I got so used to not going to the nail salon over winters that I finally just threw in the towel and quit going altogether. I don’t think I am alone in this either. I talked to one lady who was saying she did everything at home by herself, then went in and paid a few dollars to have a couple of diamonds added to just one of her home done polish jobbed nails and clear coated over it just to make her home nail job look a tad more fancy (now that’s a brain storm smart beauty idea!). She relegated the nail salon to the final touches and did the rest on her own.

After a while, I just became quasi happy I had totally eliminated a major beauty expense. Every once in a blue moon while I might buy either a new polish, replacement bottle of remover, or bag of cotton balls if I need them. That’s it for me. My manicure and pedicure expense has gone down to costing me zero. The main reason I quit getting my acrylic nails and massage chair pedicures was lack of funds to pay for them. But I did notice some ancillary benefits of exiting the nail salon rush. One thing is certain, if I have a very special occasion to get ready for and splurge on a professional mani and pedi I will appreciate the experience as an occasional luxury rather than a regular expense. Read on (by clicking next) for part 2 of my revelations in case you need some “can’t afford those French tip nails anymore” therapy.