bargains

I guess like most folks, I get caught up in griping about price increases: the cost of gasoline or propane; good grief, $3 for a loaf of bread; veterinary services for dogs and horses.

But sometimes there's some good news.

Our microwave oven is getting a bit tired. It tends to burn popcorn before it's all done popping. It's taking longer and longer to cook those frozen chimichangas I keep around for the grandkids.

So, I browsed the Internet to check out prices. Wow, have these things come down in price, or what? The one pictured here is less than $50 at Wal Mart. It even has a turntable, which is a feature I've never had on a microwave.

We bought our first microwave when my kids were still living at home, probably around 1983. I'm sure it cost over $300, and of course we got it on credit. Hey, that was a lot of money then!

Computers are like this. I believe when I got my first Gateway in 1998, it cost close to $1,000; and that was one of the cheapest models to be found. It had a 6-gigabyte hard drive.

These days, the cheapest computer you can buy has at least 60 gigabytes, and you can get one for under $400.

Wow.