I've just started reading this thread and haven't read all the earlier posts, so I hope I'm not repeating something. But I thought others would be interested in this.
I recently purchased a few simpoints so I could get some new hairdos for my sims, and of course I also downloaded all the free stuff I could find; well, most of it. One of the things I noticed is that the store doesn't tell you how much it will cost your sims to purchase the item. When I was in Buy Mode looking for something to decorate a sim's house yesterday, I found a new item called "The Dragon's Vase" in the decorative section. I don't remember downloading it specifically, but it has the solid green plumbob like the other items from the store and there's no other place it could have come from. What's interesting about this vase is that it has an environmental value of 5 and costs the sims just $1 to buy. So naturally I placed several of them in my sims' home. Nicely decorated moodlets for under $5! Works for me.