If you read both articles on haircuts; doing them yourself and putting the difference into your Health Savings Account; you may be thinking, this guy is a little over the top.  After the haircut, there's not much left on top for sure.

Anyway, thinking about ways to save money to put into your HSA can be quite an interesting mental exercise.  At the Gradock Bulletin some might say that I am obsessed with it.  I am always coming up with these hair brained schemes to put a few bucks into my HSA. 

Last week I was driving back from Charleston, and had the opportunity to stop in at one of the 4,000 McDonald's located along the highway between Charleston and my home.  While my business partner was inside loading up on apple pies at 2 for a buck, I was standing outside the car, baking in the sun and stretching my legs.  I noticed that the red roof on Mickey D's was painted red like the hair on Ronald McDonald's head and started wondering how much money I could save if rather than replacing my 20 year-old roof with the curling shingles, I simply painted it red.

I know when I put the thing on 20 years ago, it was several thousand dollars and I'm pretty sure that the cost of asphalt shingles has not gone down.  In fact, with the price of petroleum, replacing it may not even be an option.  I'll bet I could buy the paint and get it painted for less than a grand.  I could put the difference into my HSA and probably cap that sucker out for the year.

OK, granted, this idea is totally idiotic.  But once again, if you don't think you have an extra nickel to spare to put into your HSA, you might be surprised at what you can come up with if you get a little bit creative.  On second thought, if you're not real crazy about your neighbors, you might be able to kill two birds with one red roof.