The Best $130 I Ever Spent

I bought paper, extra ink, and a stapler, too

A small task regarding my Hawaiian family's financial matters expanded into a project with lots of scanning, copying and e-mailing. Sure, I could have spent my vacation at FedEx/Kinko's or prevailed upon one of my brothers to use his office after hours, but the convenient, economical choice was to buy my own.

The all-in-one HP 8715 inkjet printer ($130 on sale at Costco) fit the bill. It could even scan up to 50 pages at a time--not perfectly, because the feeder often grabbed more than one page--but it worked often enough to save hours over my one-at-a-time scanner back home.

When I'm done, I'll turn the printer over to Dad, who needs a copier anyway.