Straight Razor Shaving, Expensive?
I don't think so, unless you want to collect razors.
You can get a pre-sharpened, shave-ready Dovo classic white for about $96.00 including ship.
An Tony Williams strop for about $40.00. This is your initial outlay.
You can have it honed twice a year for about $50.00.
So, the total cost of this system for 5 years is $386.00.
That is $70.00 per year averaged out.
I ignore shave cream, brush, cup, etc., because you need this stuff for good cartridge shaving, too.
The only razor I have found that comes close to the straight experience is the Gillette Mach III Turbo.
The cartidges for this razor cost $2.20 each.
To get a good shave quality, I use 1 Mach III turbo cartridge per week, at least. Yes, you can make them last longer, but the shave quality falls off significantly after about 6 shaves, so that is not valid.
52 cartridges per year is 114.00 per year, approximately.
So it is $44.00 MORE per year to use the Gillette Mach III Turbo system, and that assumes the razor was free.
Now let's see what happens if you purchase a Norton 4k/8K, and a good barber hone and learn to hone.
Razor: $90.00
Strop: $40.00
Norton: $60.00
Barber Hone: $100.00 (probably an over estimate).
Total: $290.00
This is also the 5 year cost in this case, since you don't have to pay for a honing.
Now you are down to $58.00 per year, WAY WAY WAY cheaper than any cartridge shaver.
And if you amortize over 10 years, you are down around $28 or $30 per year, since that one razor will last you forever. Throw in another razor or two and another hone or two and you are still money ahead.
What about Bic and other disposables? They are cheaper than the Mach III cartidges, but the shave is so far from what you can get with a straight that it isn't a fair comparison.
Of course, if you decide to have lots of razors, and you want to try lots of stones, and Rooney brushes and exotic shave creams and several different strops, well, then you can spend a lot. But it isn't necessary to do this to shave every day with a straight razor.
My $.02.