Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, you WOULD kind of be better off (both financially and feature-wise) just gluing an iPad Mini to the front of the fridge...
No, you would be better off financially to not waste your money on the iPad. iPad mini: $399 kindle fire: $49.99
I don't know enough about the Fire to say whether it's a piece of garbage or not; all I know is that I have a bunch of iPad apps that I've paid for and Apple's ecosystem makes it easy to add another iPad and transfer my settings over.