When you first move in to a new home or apartment, it seems the bathroom is the first room you want to “personalize”, perhaps because it’s the smallest room and most easily redecorated. If you’re one of those who enjoys a long, relaxing bath, you understand the need to have your bathroom be a little oasis of luxury where you can soak your cares away in beautiful surroundings. Even on a modest budget, you can make your bathroom attractive and inviting.

A coat of paint, window coverings and a nice shower curtain is a good starting point. It’s your bathroom accessories, the little touches, which make all the difference. Bathroom accessories run the gamut from art work to toothbrush holders. Many of these individual items are inexpensive, so you can take the add as you go approach if need be. Sometimes this method works best because you’ll take your time to find the perfect bathroom accessories.

Once you’ve established your basic color scheme, work from here to fill out your decorating scheme. It’s best to begin with the larger bathroom accessories, in order to achieve a unified look. Some of the larger bathroom accessories include items like toiletry cabinets, waste baskets, bath mats and towel bars. Naturally, these will be noticed first as part of your color scheme and style of decorating. Choose colors, textures and materials that fit into your overall scheme.

For example, if your walls are painted in an eggshell color, with a rust colored shower curtain, you have two avenues to explore in filling out your selection of bathroom accessories. You may choose similar tones or go for contrasting colors for your bathroom accessories. If your choice is similar tones, a natural rattan toiletry cabinet will fit in nicely, as will a wicker waste basket and warm tones for bath mats and towels. Slight variations in the colors of these bath accessories will give you a better result than colors which are exactly the same. Oak or brass towel racks will also go well in this scenario.

If you’d like a more lively look, consider colors that are on the opposite side of the color wheel. For example, a rust colored shower curtain will contrast nicely with teal blue tones in your bath mats. Shades between teal blue and forest green will look good in this grouping. Following through on the contrasting approach, you’ll find brightly colored plastic towels racks in shades that are just right for your scheme. Oak and brass towel racks will also work.

Now it’s time to look for the accent bath accessories, such as soap dishes, toothbrush holders and the like. Small glass vases with dried flowers can add a homey touch, as will live plants. Ferns and many vining plants do very well in bathrooms and add a lot of charm. If you’re the one who looks forward to the long soak in the bath, be sure to have an attractive candle holder to finish off your bathroom accessories shopping list!

Having grown a little tired of my older cell phone, I decided to go in for a new one. Naturally, I opted to sign up for a cell phone plan in order to get a great phone at a relatively lower price. At that point in time, it seemed to me that I was going in for a great cell phone plan. But the first few months on the cell phone plan opened my eyes to a whole new world of cell phone plans.

Contrary to popular belief, unless you read and understand the fine print in most cell phone plan contracts, you could find yourself at the wrong end of a long term contract that you can very well do without. But most people are so enamored by the fact that they will be getting a premium phone for a fraction of the cost that they don’t really delve deep into the layers of the cell phone plan. This is exactly what happened with me.

When I signed up for the cell phone plan, I was promised a lot of free goodies. Caller ID was pre-activated on my cell phone, auto roaming was also pre-activated, my cell phone plan also seemed to have the best outgoing call discounts. I’m sure that even if you were to listen to the spiel of the sales personnel, you would have gone in for the phone. So the monthly charge for the cell phone plan, which extended to monthly payments over a three year period, didn’t seem like much. Boy, was I wrong!

The cell phone plan nearly did me in. Not only id the monthly payments become a painful way to owning a premium phone, I found out very soon that the free goodies were for a limited period only. According to my cell phone plan, the called ID was only free for a three month period. Soon after this period lapsed, I found myself paying a hefty fee to keep the called ID activated. The same was the case with the auto roaming facility. That too was free only for a three month period. And once the free period had lapsed, I found myself paying through the nose for that as well.

Initially, I was miffed. I felt that the salesman who sold me the cell phone plan had cheated me. But upon checking the fine print of the cell phone plan contract, I figured that all these details were mentioned there. Like most consumers, I had made the cardinal mistake of not reading and understanding the fine print. Which is why, with an expensive cell phone plan, I was literally paying the price. Not everyone is so unwise though. Upon checking around, I found that most of my friends and colleagues always made it a point to check the fine print. Another colleague took a phone with the bare bones package, even waiving the need for called ID, roaming and other facilities that were provided free for the initial months of usage as he too had discovered the hidden terms on his cell phone plan while on an earlier contract!