Couldn't resist the title. DW and I have been planning on painting our bedroom for a year now. We went to Home Depot about a year ago and picked out a bunch of colors and taped them to the wall, then each day we would vote on one color to remove. Eventually we were left with one color, and that swatch has been sitting there lonely on the wall ever since. Well, no more. We decided that for our anniversary (14 is the latex paint anniversary, right?) we would treat ourselves to a new wall color.

So we sent the boys to the grandparents for the weekend, and I went to Home Depot to get paint Friday morning. I've never had such a good experience. I had two guys waiting on me, and was in and out of there in 20 minutes. They told me that Behr was running a sale, and gave me the rebate form. I was going to get Kilz for the primer (since our mobile home has that wallpaper/wallboard) and then the $20 a gallon Behr. But they said that the $30 a gallon Behr has primer in it, so I bought that instead, and saved on not buying the $15 a gallon Kilz. (spent an extra $10 to save $15). Plus I got a rebate for $5 off each gallon, so I saved $20 total.

We also decided to go out for our anniversary dinner at lunch instead, so that we could get back home & finish painting, so we probably saved another $20-$25 on that.

Our room looks as good as new now, all for $40 in paint!

Wow! It's been almost an entire month since I last blogged. Really fell off the wagon there, posting wise.

So, in the last month, DW and I have decided to make some changes. First off, we have cancelled the land line and the dial-up internet. We were paying $36 a month to Bellsouth (AT&T now, I guess) and $10 a month to Juno for dial-up. And $51 a month to Cingular (also AT&T now...scary). We've been looking to upgrade the whole telecommunications system for years. We only have dial-up at the house...way out where we are there are no plans to bring in DSL. And we haven't been able to make satellite internet work within the budget yet. Also, our house is a virtual black hole for Cingular. There are literally two spots in the house where DW could talk and have even a mediocre signal.

So what we ended up doing was cancelling Bellsouth, Juno and Cingular, and signing up for Cellular South with an unlimited data plan, and bought a Blackberry off of craigslist for $60. The Cellular South plan will be about $58 a month, but we have full coverage at the house. Also, since I have Cellular South as my work phone, we can talk using mobile to mobile unlimited minutes. And DW comes to my office at least twice a week anyway, because the library is literally next door (I can pick up their wireless internet at my desk), so between the Blackberry for email & facebook and the library, she is OK with her current internet setup. Actually, it's better for her, as it's faster than dial-up, and she's now free to walk about the house.

So, all in all, we cancelled $36, $10 and $51 and replaced it with $58. So we're $36 ahead.

The other decision was to cancel DirecTV. We're paying $84 a month right now, and have a contract (because of the HD service) through August. We're going to wait until after the Torchwood/Doctor Who broadcasts at the end of July to cancel it, and then only have to pay $20 in penalties.

So all in all, we should be saving about $120 a month soon. Not to mention the electricity from having two DVR's on at all times (about $8 a month).