As part of our “How much does it cost?” series, we recently had our air ducts cleaned. The whole project ended up costing $500 with a NADCA (National Air Duct Cleaners Association) certified HVAC company in Delaware county, Pennsylvania.

As always, standard disclaimer applies as costs vary based on your location, project requirements,  permits and other fees.

The company we ended up using is called Interior Maintenance Company (IMC) in Lansdowne PA. We selected the company because it was based in Lansdowne and we wanted to support our local town in some way. The company provided an estimate based on the number of registers we had in our home. Their current breakdown of costs based on registers:

• 1 – 6 registers – $295
• 7 – 9 registers – $385
• 10 – 12 registers – $440
• 13 – 15 registers – $490
• 16 – 18 registers – $540
• 19 – 21 registers – $590
• 22 – 24 registers – $650
• 25 – 27 registers – $710

For a free event, history in any form is worth every moment. For a harvest festival at Newlin Grist Mill it’s a whole other experience.

As described on the Newlin Grist Mill site:

We enjoyed all of this thanks to Nathaniel and Mary Newlin, who in 1704, built a water-powered grist mill along the West Branch of Chester Creek.

Has anyone used Arnica Gel to soothe pain from vaccination shots? We picked up a tube from Whole Foods after hearing friends talk about how they loved the product, especially since it was considered to be a homeopathic medicine.

From the Arnicare website,

Thoughts? Comments?

We did our homework and confirmed that Vornado heaters are a good investment for homes trying to save some money on their heating bills. From the Vornado website, the marketing pitch for their heaters is:

In order to save even more money on this purchase we decided to try to buy the Vornado heater from Bed, Bath and Beyond using one of the famous 20% coupons. Look familiar?

However, try as we might, we could not find the Vornado AVH2 for sale either online or at the retail Bed, Bath and Beyond store. We ended up buying the Vornado AVH4 which comes with the same standard 5 year warranty, has the cool touch case, the automatic safety shut off system, the automatic tip-over protection and the thermostat as well.

I was still curious what the main difference was between the AVH2 and the AVH4, so I ended up calling Vornado at (800) 234-0604 and discovered that aside from the AVH4 being exclusive to Bed, Bath and Beyond, the other primary difference is that the AVH4 is manufactured in China. If you’re looking for a good Vornado heater that is manufactured in the United States, then the AVH2 is the heater to get.

Coming soon to Lansdowne is a new shopping center called the Lansdowne Market. One of the prime retail stores in this market will be a new Bottom Dollar Food store, currently scheduled to open on August 19th, 2011.

From the Bottom Dollar Food website, “Although Bottom Dollar Food may sound like a typical discount store, we refuse to act like one! Yes, we do have food prices that kick bottom. In fact, we have the lowest prices in town. Guaranteed! To prove it, we promise to beat any competitive like item – just see the store manager for details. But Bottom Dollar Food is much more than a pretty price.”

It looks like Bottom Dollar is run by the Delhaize Group - a food retailer headquartered in Belgium and now operating in eight countries and on three continents.

The Lansdowne Memorial Day 5K is scheduled to take place on Monday, May 30, 2011. New this year is live entertainment including a performance by Scintillations. Register by May 16 to guarantee a T-shirt and take advantage of special early rates!

The race starts at 8:30 am and runs through the central  business district and historic areas of Lansdowne. The start and finish will be at 30 N. Lansdowne Ave., across from Lansdowne Theater. For more information or to register online visit the online registration page.

I’m not going to lie to you. There are a myriad ways to set up a home security system. This post is merely an attempt to save you the time and pick a system that has worked for us – SimpliSafe. Clearly, if you live in the United States and are fairly close to an urban area you’ve been inundated with offers for free home security systems. In our case, every time we received an offer we soon started wondering “Are we safe?”.

If anything, these “Free Home Security System” offers forced us to do our homework. We did our research only to find out that these so-called free offers were essentially three-year contracts with hefty fees for breaking out of the contract and with very limited capabilities for expanding or enhancing the security system without a contractor. Yet, we also found out that there was a benefit with using a security system – lower home or rental insurance and perhaps most important of all – piece of mind from the sense of safety.

After months of reading home security system reviews from various consumer magazines and lurking on home security system forums we decided to take the plunge and invest in the SimpliSafe home security system.

I’ll cover the steps for guiding you through the process of buying the system, not that you need my help, since the SimpliSafe website is intuitive and their customer service even better, but below is the SimpliSafe system we received:

Each piece in the system was customized and pre-programmed by SimpliSafe to our exact wants and with the simple goal of ensuring that you can set up your home security system in under 10 minutes.

I had been pining over this lamp for over a year, trying to decide if it was a good idea to spend $200 on something I’d only seen online. When I started seeing it all over the place on TV I figured it was “a sign” and decided to just go for it – and I am certainly glad I did. I love, love, LOVE this lamp! It is even better in person than on the website. The lamp shade is a bit bigger than I expected but looks fantastic in my living room. The only thing I would change would be the cord that hangs down the middle of the base, it just sort of looks like they didn’t know where else to put it. Aside from this small detail everything else is wonderful and I highly recommend the Twine Floor Lamp to anyone trying to add a little extra to their room!

From spending $40/ month on a post-paid plan and barely using all the minutes, we switched to a $10/ month pre-paid plan. The great thing about  making the switch now is that most cell phone vendors allow you the ability to port or transfer your number between different vendors as well as different plans.

If you haven’t taken a look at your cell phone plan in the last 2 years, now may be a great time to start shopping around.