Our phone bills now are very low. They didn’t always used to be that way though. We have a lot of relatives who live in a different state and the long distance calls could really add up. When we decided we wanted to cut our costs in this area, we went through each item that we were being charged money for and decided the things we wanted to keep and those services we could do without. Then we checked around for the lower cost alternatives.
We found we could save quite a bit by getting rid of all the paid options on our local phone bill. This included the call waiting, call forwarding, etc. Once we dropped those services, we never missed them.
Next, we purchased a Sam’s Club AT&T calling card for use when making long distance calls. Our cost for a long distance call is now $.03 per minute. When we get low on minutes, we just recharge the minutes on the card. We have been very happy with this method for making long distance calls and it has really saved us money.
Lastly, we got rid of a cell phone provider and went with a Tracfone. The phone was purchased when Tracfone was offering a special promotion where if you purchased 500 minutes you would receive the phone for free.
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What about Vonage? For less than $20/month we get more time than we can ever go through and have call waiting, caller id, voice mail, and more. We are even looking at dropping the Vonage and picking up a “Dock-n-Talk” device so we can use traditional home phones with our wireless plan.
We use Vonage and pay $30 per month, with taxes included. There are even less expensive VoIP plans available as well. Comcast VoIP costs $33/month for the next 12 months.
(BellSouth/AT&T wants $60 per month, with fewer features.)
For cellular, you can get a discount if you have DoD connections. My plan cost $80 before I realized that I qualified. I called Cingular and dropped the price to $66. My company also has discount plans with major wireless carriers. They just were not as cheap as the DoD one.
We use VOIP provider Packet8.net and only pay $199 for a whole year of service. Our phone bills from AT&T had averaged $85/month before the switch, with the added benefit that they let the NSA listen in on all our calls. Now we get many more extras like voicemails sent to our email and unlimited calls to the US and Canada.
Even when we upgraded our broadband speed and bought a wireless phone system, it didn’t take long for us to see significant savings. For us, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.
My husband has to have a cell phone for work. Fortunately they pay a large chunk of his bill. When I got a cell phone we got rid of our land line altogether. The only people calling us on it were advertisers (especially political ads). Since we use the same carrier, our calls between us our free, as are our calls to almost everyone else we call.
My wife and I did much the same thing, but I think we’ve managed to take it a step further.
We have the most basic $15/month phone from comcast which is used by our security system and all incoming calls.
We use skype for long distance. That works out to $15/year (fixed rate, we got it during a 1/2 off deal), plus the occasional call to my brother in Switzerland (2 cents/minute).
Now the kicker: Cellphone.
T-mobile is by far the best deal for low usage cells. After you spend $100 on t-mobile prepay minutes you get a 10 cent/minute rate. Minutes expire after 1 year. Purchasing additional minutes extends the expiration date by one year. Here is the break down:
Initial investment: 2 phones from Walmart, $35/each. Each phone includes a $10 giftcard. $100/phone buying the first 1000 minutes.
That’s $270 for the first year of use of 2 cell phones. We are extremely low use customers, so that means after 1 year we each have well over 1/2 of our minutes still available. So, a $10 topup for each phone is in order, to extend the minutes by 1 year.
That works out to the first 2 years of cellphone usage costing us $290. That’s $12/month for 2 phones total. And, each year the deal gets sweeter, assuming our minutes don’t jump up for some reason.
-Jason
I travel extensively and use Skype. I got the 1/2 price deal for $15 per year. We “Skype In” to my girl’s daughter out of state, and “Skype out” to all others. We have a vmall vacation home where there’s no cellular coverage. I load up Skype and call out on the network. When I’m overseas, the calls are free!
Skype is a great deal, even at the current $30 per year. Much better, cost wise (I don’t know about the quality), than Vonage’s monthly fees!
I’m using SKYPE (OUT) almost exclusively now. Quality is excellent but even better to folks that are Skye members so there’s absolutely ZERO charge above my hi-speed DSL charges…I just got a larger than norm bill from Verizon which I’ve already succeeded in getting a 10 dollar credit (but not until the July bill) refunded. I’m going for a much larger amount this coming week…I will not allow them to corral me into a certain level of customer service then leave me to do or die. I WILL climb as high as I need to. I can use SKYPE out to keep them on as long as I see fit. ALL they can do is cut-off my service and put another tick mark on my credit if they refuse to accept my conditions….I pay for 900 minutes. I’ve already, by just glancing at my bill, found serveral calls that would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to have made from the city they claim they originated from (We’re talking 30 miles away. The times, dates,and distance. No way)
I actually get better cell service for what I need on my Net10 Prepaid phone. Verizon network capacity is woefully lacking in Central South Carolina the result being MANY a dropped call. (Pretty much up from Columbia to almost Greenville along the I-26 corridor. Service drastically improves at the split of I-385 and I-26 near one of the Clinton exits). Their customer service agents are rude WHEN you can even understand the bad accents and poor grammar. I only use the Verizon for 803 calls BUT seeing as I don’t live their anymore, telling friends I know to use SKYPE software makes tons more sense. OR they can call my 864 Net10 phone instead.
With Net10 and Skype, I have all that I need. DSL charges need to come down ofcourse and ATT/BELLSOUTH make it impossible to have Naked DSL without going with Cingular (which I hate even worse than Verizon)Wireless. I’ll look into getting the cheapest POTS service here with the DSL though to say maybe 10 bux a month that way.
Sorry about the ramblin’ rant BUT we ARE the customers.I’m not trying to cheat anyone but I’ll be damned if I’m going to be cheated either.
Consumer activism is on-the-move.
Another way the phone companies gouge consumers is through charging about $2 per 411 call. Altogether, Americans pay about $7 billion per year on unnecessary 411 charges; they’re unnecessary because there are free, ad-supported directory assistance numbers like 1-800-Free411. People have also mentioned Skype, so it’s worth noting that you can search for listings at free411.com and then connect to those listings from the website via Skype.
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