I bought an iPad 2 last week.

On hearing this, a friend of mine commented that I have finally, fully converted to “the dark side.”

Not too long ago, I purchased a MacBook Air on Quibids. I use it almost exclusively for writing. About a month ago, I added the iPhone to my list of Apple products.

And now… the iPad.

I bought it to teach from.

I didn’t get all the extra features, like the WiFi/3G, or the 64 gigabytes of memory. I really don’t need those features for what I want to do with it.

I’ve recently begun to change the way I store things. I’ve started using EverNote for a lot of my file storage, and bought a ScanSnap Scanner so that I could transfer documents from my filing cabinets to a digital format. Almost all of my bills and statements come in digital format now, as well.

I’m well on my way to consuming a lot less paper than I have in the past.

The next step was to look at my teaching habits.

After taking a close look at the paper I use when I teach, I reached some startling conclusions. I teach twice a week; Sunday School and our Wednesday evening youth group. I discovered that I currently use almost 1500 pages a year, just printing out these two lessons.

That’s three reams of paper.

That’s about what we use in our copier every month at the church office.

That’s crazy!

I know that’s not all that much, compared to a lot of other offices. But it surprised me.

And I realize that it’s not that great a monetary savings each year, but when you factor in the cost of the paper, added to the costs associated with the copier, and all the other uses I will find for my iPad, it starts to add up.

I think it will still take a while to pay for itself. But at least I’m on my way.

Now, to find the right apps to do what I want to do….

Do you own an iPad? What do you find yourself using if for primarily? Or what apps do you find indispensable? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.