With several major purchases looming in my future, my sweetie and I spent the weekend questing for information.

First up: replace our cell phones. After nearly 7 years, the old Samsung 8500s are increasingly unreliable. Mine has trouble finding/keeping a signal. Mike’s battery won’t hold a charge. When we call each other, Sprint won’t connect us, thus cheating us out of those free phone-to-phone minutes. After much procrastinating and research we’ve finally settled on a new Samsung slider phone (I think it’s a D807) and Cingular service. We should have the new phones in and the numbers ported over sometime next week.

Next up: living room furniture. I’ve always said that I couldn’t have new furniture until the cat died. Well, FurBeast died in April, and I’m finally getting annoyed with the old furniture. I’m more than a bit overwhelmed by the choices at the Nebraska Furniture Mart, and by the prices at other stores. I think I’d like to have a reclining love seat rather than a regular recliner, but I can’t make the geometry work. More research and questing will be required.

Next year (maybe): replace the car. My Saturn is 9 years old with about 86,000 miles on it. It still has some life left in it, but about every six months something stupid and expensive needs attention (such as the $500 nut that was required to repair the rear door lock.) A friend loaned us a copy of the ultimate Consumer Reports car guide. At this point, I’m thinking Honda Civic. Although I’d like a hybrid, the total savings numbers don’t yet add up.

More questing will be required…