OT - Im suddenly saving 100$ a month on my phone bill

[Whipperwhirl]

This is way off topic - and I posted this on the budget board - But I know alot of people on the podcast board are like me - they are scared to visit the less friendly areas of the boards so I think I will share this tip here also in case there is anyone else out there dumb like me.

I, like alot of people I think, don't pay too much attention to my phone bill. Recently I have been spending alot of time connecting with old friends and family on facebook and realized I barely call anyone any more - its all online.

Both my husband and I have cell phones for work - and a quick glance of my phone bill and I realized that most of the landline calls we make were either quick calls to local family or calls for work - that out of habit - we use the land line for.

I called the phone company and found out you can drop the "free" long distance and even pay 3 cents a minute for local calls and still keep your phone number. No charge for incomming calls. If we dropped to a minimalist plan we wouldnt have have caller ID or call waiting - but we never used any of those features anyway so I signed us up.

Just got my phone bill - it dropped from $152.00 to $46.00 - that $46.00 includes our satelite TV and internet. I feel so stupid for paying all that extra money to the phone company all these years. $1,200.00 a year - thats an extra weekend or so at WDW.

Maybe this would work for someone else out there - Have a happy Sat. - Whip

 

[GBShorts]

That's awesome. Mind me asking who your services are through? Is it a big national company?

 

[Whipperwhirl]

AT&T - dish network through them for the TV

 

[parrotheadlois]

We use Vonage, it hooks up through the cable system - $20 or so a month - all long distance included.

We're not big phone users and thiis is perfect for us.

The only problem is a recent one. Because we wanted to play Animal Crossing through the Wii, we had to hook up a wireless router. Now the phone has heavy static. We used a Vonage router, I think there might be better ones out there.

But as far as regular phone service goes - I highly recommend Vonage

 

[NWOhioAngela]

Congrats on your savings! I've read that more and more people are dumping their landlines all together and using cell phones as their primary phones.

 

[DisnyMama]

I have TimeWarner for all three so I will check my bill and look into this. Thanks for the tip because I rarely use my home phone!

Shannon

 

[miss missy]

Good for you! Our cells dont work well in the house I work for one of those TelCo's and trust me, landlines are going fast. This is not good for us, but can't help people from wanting to save money!