Hello, my Name is Franco, I'm 31 and from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I love learning new things and learning to shave and maintain a razor is a good example of such thing. My life is mostly about learning, and for that I'd like to thank all people making and using great communities like this one. I even have a job (independent programmer) thanks to internet and it's people. I don't know if it's a good thing to give advice in such an easy and "general" way. But leaving school (and then university) so as to have more time to spend learning new things instead of following rigid and boring study programs, has been the best decision in my life. I won't advice anybody to leave formal studies but I think making a good use of internet should somehow give more credits to people passionate about self learning thanks to sites like this one.
About shaving: For most of my life I didn't knew of straight razors. Someday I got tired of cartridge razors so I googled for alternatives. I did the maths and I came to the conclusion that investing in a more or less, good shaving set would cost almost the same as a lifetime of cartridge razors and canned foam. So I bought a good beautiful razor (Ralf Aust 6/8) with the idea of not investing very much in the honing equipment. Of course, after learning more about honing I realized that investing in good honing equipment was a better more interesting idea so I borrowed a Shapton 5k and a Naniwa 10k (both Japanese gritt scale). And of course, I was not accounting for a lapping stone so in the end I finished spending maybe twice as expected, which is a lot considering how much it costs in my country to get everything with shipping, 50% taxes (including shipping), very high exchange rates and other related expenses.
But of course, I do not regret it. Here is a photo of my piece steel for anybody considering to buy any of those beautiful razors.
