I've thoroughly enjoyed reading each post thus far and I wanted to contribute.

One of my hobbies thus far has been finding ways to save money.

So shaving with a straight razor has become somewhat of a subhobby!
I havn't saved money on shaving yet, because of the initial cost, but I'm a long term investor and I believe I'll be in the black in a few months or so.

My other money saving methods are not having anything to do with cell phones, and rolling cigarettes rather than buying manufactured. That's not what this thread is about though, so back to topic.

I spent some time in the US Army, and shaving really became a pet peeve of mine. Clean shaven at all times when on duty, no exceptions! Razor burn on top of razor burn! I was retired and I'm pretty sure I didn't shave at all for about 6 months, then started shaving about once every two weeks.

All of the learning, skill, and challenge of shaving with a straight razor has really been an inspiration to me and now I look forward to all of my shaves. Since I started I've been faithfully shaving every other day the entire time, and I look forward to each shave because I know I'm going to learn something. The only reason I don't shave everyday is because I don't think my face could handle it with my current skill level.

And of course masculine nostalgia... everytime I shave I think to myself "This is how they did it back when men were men..."

So that's what I think... poorly written, and I apologize for that. The topic really brought a lot of thoughts to mind and I was just trying to get some of the more notable ones down before I had a "OOOH look at the kitty..." moment.