Open Wallet, Flying Dollars

When one thing wears out and breaks, more is sure to follow. My computer has meet the end of the road. I still have a big clunky HP PC, purchased about seven years ago. My old printer is shot as well. So I've ordered an Asus Mini-PC(Acer AspireRevo AR3700-U3002 Slim and Compact Desktop) and a HP Deskjet 3000 Printer. I can't wait to get them set up.

On a whim, I looked into prepaid wifi service. Last time I checked it was just at the cusp of being developed, and I have discovered that now it's readily available; the selection of service providers and coverage continues to grow. I went with T-mobile(good coverage in our area) prepaid high speed wireless service . I chose 30 days for $30.00(no contract). We already use T-mobile for our prepaid cell phones. By canceling our land line, we'll actually be spending less than we are now with dial-up which is $12.00 a month and phone service which runs about $30.00 a month. Our dial-up service has been relatively good, and it's been very reliable; however, it has limited us to web surfing and very slow downloads. If the prepaid wifi works out for us, we'll be saving about $120.00 per year.

I'm hopeful that all of these changes will be a good fit for us. And I think we got some good deals, but I always wish that things would last longer - technology marches on. Computer replacements tend to be a surprise expense, especially if you tend to use them up and squeeze out every last nanobyte.