Thursday, August 12, 2010

Thrifty Thursday - Do you need to pay a lot for phone service?

Well as I see our bill come in every month and see that our mobile minutes rarely get used, I pondered on the idea of getting rid of our land line.  I figured people rarely call us on that line and we are only using a third of the allowable minutes on our mobile line.  This is mainly due to the fact that most friends and family are on the same network, and those numbers that are not, we entered them as our 10 "extra" numbers that can be considered in-network with the plan we have.

So I started discussing with my husband and asking around to find out if anyone we knew gave up their land line and why.  Most people had the same reasons as ours, but they also said why pay all those extra taxes and fees when you are not even using the line.  My husband's only hesitation if something would happen that causes the mobile lines to be full and the ability of dialing 911 for our sitters or children.  My hesitation is the fact that we have a fax and we do use it once in awhile.

I called our phone company and asked about the different options and settled on the fact that it would only be after taxes and fees, $12 to have a land line.  With this plan there is no charge for incoming calls, however any call we make is .10/call or .10/min for long distance.  Therefore, we chose to keep our land line, but it cut our bill by $30.  This only took a 10 minute phone call.

Other options people shared with me were things like magicJack.  Friends we have loved using this service which is similar to Vonage or Skype, but cheaper at only $39.95 initially, then $19.95/year after the first year which is included in the purchase.  We hesitated because it goes through your Internet provider and again if service goes down and the 911 factor.

I think a lot of us just stick with what we always had, instead of what you truly need.  If you are looking to cut something out of your budget, consider an evaluation of your utilities.  It is amazing what one phone call can do.  This is the second time this has happened.  The first time was when I inquired about a mailing for our gas company that resulted in a significant savings.

Has anyone either removed their land line or have any other thoughts on this topic?

1 comment:

  1. I got rid of my land line when I lived in FL- I was only keeping it because of my internet, but I called and found out it only cost $5 extra to have internet only instead of both- that's still a huge savings! My parents tried the Magic jack and they sent it back- they said it didn't work for them. Glad you got a good deal :)

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