I was in your position not long ago, and I encourage you to start doing it yourself. ESPECIALLY if you live an athletic lifestyle. It's scary, but the financial benefits and the freedom you gain is well worth the initial heartache.

Blending a piece to your own hair is easy once you get the hang of it. Since you're currently with a hairclub they must've shown you some styling techniques. These help with blending. Puffing the hair around the edges is a good trick, it gets rid of that 'line' you sometimes see when someone is wearing. I have it every time I get out of bed. When I wake up I spray my hair with water and leave in moisturiser and gently 'puff' the hair around the edge of my piece up. And I also comb the hair in such a way to create a crown. Since you already have a piece you can try this. If you don't already have one, get a small mirror as your second mirror. This way you can check out your hair from all angles. The back is important too. Mix it up, don't be afraid to experiment. The more you change your style the less drastic length and colour changes will be to the people who see you on a regular basis. Plus women love guys who have a sense of style, that don't always have the same look day in day out.

Another important thing is getting a good colour match. Try to get the right colour for your piece (if your anal about colour match place highlights in your piece, it should distract the eye from any small colour inconsitancies). Get a stylist to cut it in, in my opinion this is a MUST. Spending hundreds of dollars a year combined with time taken with attachment to walk around with a piss poor hair cut just doesn't seem right (I might be wrong, maybe some people do a great job cutting their own hair - but I don't fall into that category). I was lucky and found my stylist through this forum (she deals with wigs). If you don't have luck through this forum start googling. Call up hairdressers and barbers in the area and ask them if they are comfortable with cutting wigs. You won't know unless you ask.

I attach and reattach once a week. It isn't hard to do, but it's fiddily. I have some new methods I want to try with attachment. Methods that will hopefully make it quicker and neater. At the moment though I make a perimeter of tape on the outside of the piece by cutting up pieces of tape (contours and rolls). I do this to avoid getting any lift on the sides of the piece. Then I place a line of tape down the middle of the piece. Line up the hairline and place it on my head. Once again, browse through youtube to get an idea of how this is done. The hardest part about placing it on your head is getting the hairline right. Once you've got the hairline right the rest of the wig should fall into place. I use tapes because I find they hold well and are easy to use. Note, I play soccer which involves running (and I sweat ALOT!) and sometimes heading the ball. I haven't had any troubles yet. Tapes don't turn white and cause itching when I exercise (glue I had when at a hairclub did). Plus I didn't feel secure when sweating, I could sometimes feel the glue's bond loosen. I don't think it was loose enough to come off, but it was unerving. Sometimes I use glue for touch ups on the hairline, but I have wholehearted faith in tapes. You can order many products and see which one suits you best. Many people use no-shine tape on the hairline and supertape on the rest of the piece.

Also, I believe Toplace has a service where you send in an old piece and they make a template out of it. I'm sure John could confirm this...

Hope that helps.