New Laptop... for $398

Ok, I know we just bought a little video camera earlier in the week, but this laptop was totally budgeted for. Being the patriotic American that I am, I decided I would use my stimulus "rebate" to, in fact, help stimulate the economy (how convenient:).

We originally set aside about $1000 for a cheap Dell laptop (plus the full warranty that covers destruction of the laptop by our kids). Well, being the frugal (cheap) people that we are, the laptop purchase was put off for a couple of months. In fact, a lot of other odd expenses have been popping up lately and the stimulation money was beginning to fade.

As luck would have it this morning Trina showed me a Wal Mart ad where they were offering a $398 Toshiba laptop. I did some quick research and realized it would suit our purposes. We need the laptop primarily as a second Internet machine and a glorified word processor. That being said, it has specs comparable to the $600 Dells. The only thing it was lacking, in my opinion, was a decent processor. It utilizes and older model Celeron mobil processor. Knowing a bit about computers, I am familiar with the limitations of this processor. However, I also know that those limitations will barely come into play for what we plan on doing with it. The main thing is that it has 2 GB of RAM, which will work out just fine.

The other issue was that the sale was today, and each store only had about 10 units. My expectations were low at this point since it was already nearly 9am. Since I needed some additional ingredients for the Moroccan pepper sauce I wanted to make, I decided to make a trip to Wal Mart. It turns out they still had 3 units remaining. A quick browse of the side of the box to confirm the specs, a quick swipe of the infamous debit card, and the laptop was mine.

Now I just need to setup a wireless network. My buddy Ryan has an extra 802.11g router that he will let me use. So until I get it from him, we either won't have Internet access for the laptop... or we will 'borrow' the neighbors wireless connection (I'm still pondering the ethics of doing this).