Another One Bites the Dust: How I'm Going to Afford My Next Netbook

So here's the thing. I am totally addicted to my Asus netbook. It's the Eee PC Seashell series in basic black, of course . It's tiny, portable, and very lightweight. It actually fits in my purse (or in the diaper bag, if necessary). And unfortunately, I'm already on my second one since I take it everywhere. As great as these cute little things are, they're really not meant to last. As my IT friend says, they're practically disposable. But since I already know that, I can start planning for my next one. I'm sure it won't be long until its time to replace this netbook, too.

I did a lot of research when I bought my first netbook. I looked at price. I looked at features. I looked at expandability. And what I found is that they're all pretty much the same. A netbook is like an industry standard - a paired down, teeny tiny laptop without a lot of bells and whistles and no CD ROM. But at around $250, its worth every penny to me. I have a powerful desktop that I can use for mega tasks like music recording and CD burning, and the netbook is perfect for writing, tweeting, and, of course, facebooking. It has enough memory to hold some pictures - about 135 gig, and I upgraded the RAM to 2 gigs so I wasn't crashing it all the time. It's enough computer for most of my work, so it's perfectly suited for me and perfectly priced.

My first netbook had a screen issue. Red pixels showed up everywhere, and since my IT friends couldn't fix it, I decided it was prudent just to take my tax return and buy a new one. I gave the old one to my four year old son to play with since it wasn't usable. Naturally, he banged it down on the coffee table, and that got rid of most of the red pixels. So now my four year old has his own netbook, and I have mine. Life is good!

I want life to keep being good, so I'm already thinking about my next one. I know I won't be getting a tax return this year, so I have to be a little creative. I'll probably save for two months to buy my new netbook, so I need to save $125 a month, or around $41 a week. Well, I have a bad habit of hitting Dunkin' Donuts for a daily mocha latte, which runs me about $3.50 each. If I use my Keurig at home to make my own coffee at $.50 a cup, I've saved $3 a day, or around $90 for the month. It doesn't sound like much, but it really adds up. I'm on the go a lot, so I end up hitting fast food joints for lunch far more than is healthy. If I skip two value meals a week and make myself a wrap instead, I can easily save the other $35 a month and probably more. I might even be able to save enough to spring for an external CD ROM drive or a power adapter for my mini-van. My netbook budget will be pleased. And I'm pretty sure my waistline won't be complaining, either.