Sticker shock and Tanks "owie"

Our furnace in our house is original to the house which is 32 years old. When we bought the house the inspector told us the first thing we should replace should be our furnace. Instead we replaced the floors! lol. Well, I kept hearing about the rebates available on the radio so I thought I would check into it. H O L Y C R A P. They are a bit pricey, we also still just have a swamp cooler so we thought while we're at it we may as well put in central air as well. The amount we keep hearing pretty consistently is anywhere from about $6000 for an 80% efficient furnace and a 13 sir ac unit which wouldn't qualify for the rebates and tax incentives and wouldn't save us a terrible amount to about $8000-$10,000 for a 95% efficient and a 13-18 sir ac unit. We would probably see about $100 a month in savings on our gas bill in the winter with one of those and our power bill would probably go up about $15-$20/mo with the ac over the swamp cooler. WOW, just pocket change, no big deal. *** cough *** That is almost a down payment on a house! So, since our goal is to get out of debt and not add more I think we will stick with our current system and hope it last a few more years so we can save up some money and pay cash later on down the road. The tax credits (read, not guaranteed money in your pocket) of $1500 we wouldn't see (if at all) until next year on our taxes. There is also a $300 rebate from Questar Gas and some of the furnace brands are offering up to $1100 rebates. Still, we're into this a lot of money. To change over the furnace now and put in AC would be like spending a dollar to save a nickle. It just doesn't made sense for us right now.

On a lighter note, Tank scratched his forehead the other day and Cookie decided he needed a band aid to fix it, he looked so cute we had to get a pic of it,enjoy!