It’s been mentioned a couple of times before, but it bears repeating. I got an Obihai that handles 2 lines. So, my wife and I each have a different ring tone at home. Also, when she dials out, she has to dial **1 or something like that so that the Obihai shows her number to the person answering. We have it hooked up to a Panasonic cordless phone system that has enough range for our place.
Also, I have set up a HTPC. Using a FW deal from 2009, I added a video card, a dual tuner, and a wireless keyboard with mousepad to the PC which is connected to an outdoor antenna. It’s on Windows 7 and runs great with Windows Media Center. It can record two shows at the same time while you watch a previously recorded show. I have also added a 2TB external to store programs. There is always something to watch and we skip all commercials. You can even watch programs at 1.5x speed. Also, we can surf the web, show pictures, and use Amazon Prime Video and Netflix (using friend’s login), and all the other things you can do on a PC. We have only 1 TV that we use, so this works great. I have tinkered with Plex to get our programs into another room, but I dropped that project because we never use that other TV.
We have 5 lines with Cricket for $100 per month and regularly get discounted codes from Target about twice a year.
I buy steak whenever it’s on sale and vacuum seal it and freeze it. It really stays fresh for at least a month when there will likely be another sale.