Time for a new computer?

My laptop is a four year old HP Pavilion. It's served me well while I've been in school but it's dying. It's been doing that for about a year and a half now but I refuse to give it up. Last year I finally broke down, wiped the hard drive and reloaded windows but it's slow again and has other problems. I run a current antivirus software, run regular 'maintance tasks' and occasionally spybot, yet there are still problems. It's no longer 'mobile', it lives on my desk plugged in because the battery only lasts about 5 minutes now and on a chill mat so it doesn't overheat. I don't really know everything that's wrong with it. If I had to work on it all the time I'm sure it would die quickly, but mostly I just do homework and email.

The hubby has been pushing me to look at computers for about a year now. Last summer Jake bought a new computer - it's an HP Pavilion Slimline - it's compact and didn't cost too much. I would be happy to be stuck at my desk, especially if I didn't have to worry about it overheating, shutting down at the wrong time or running slllooooowwww. The only problem with getting a desktop now is that my desk doesn't have a lot of space because I've got a mess going. A flat screen seems to be the answer but they're really pricey. Ah Ha! There's a plasma screen monitor at work that was headed for the trash - probably because it's only going to last a few months - that my boss said I could have. I figured that buying the computer would be a hard enough hit on my budget - another $150 at the same time might be too much.

The biggest problem with getting a new computer is that I've sworn I won't allow another computer in the house until they - the hubby and Matt - get rid of the ones we already have. To start with, the boys each have a computer on their desk in their room. Matt has another two cases in his room that are missing some or all of the components. In front of our desks in the office, the hubby has a huge mess of monitors, cases, hard drives, video cards, floppy drives, mother boards - a mess I tell you. I don't even know what all is in there. There's more. The hubby has a laptop I bought him the Christmas before last, the laptop that it replaced, and two desktops that he uses for...? I just don't think we need another computer in the house until some of the computers that live here are gone. I know he's working on the problem, occasionally we give a monitor to a friend, Matt built a computer and gave it to an acquaintance at school, sometimes an empty case even finds it's way into the trash. We really just need to pack it all up and head to the recycling center.