I've recently joined the growing horde of people with much more free time but much less income.
I'm also in this club! The Z5500 cost around $350 here, and it will probably be cheaper in the US. You could of treat yourself given your new liberated status.
One point I forgot: I also chose an HDMI connection because Vista (and this is from memory so somewhat shaky) doesn't accept HDMI images (for TV) and sound from a different source.