Since I'm tired of posting about all-things-potty-training, thought I'd probe your brains for some information about phone usage.
For several years we've tried to save money by not paying for long-distance access on our home phone. Instead we purchase the long-distance calling cards from Sam's Club and then keep recharging them when we run out of minutes. We currently use SBC as both our phone and internet provider.
That system seems to have saved us money in years past but now that phone and internet providers have literally exploded on the market, I think it's time to change up our system. Even without long-distance on our phone we still pay 15-20 bucks a month for the phone. Plus we recharge our phone card ($26 a pop) about every two months. My mom is a vonage user and her $15 a month goes a long way - including lots of free long-distance minutes. Any of you use vonage?
I should also add that we do not own cell phones (I know, we're rare birds in this day and age). We have a cheap trac phone that we use for emergencies but that's it.
What do you do for phone usage and about how much do you pay monthly (if you don't mind sharing)?
7 comments:
I have to have the ability to call all over the US & Canada for my job, so we took the plunge and got Charter. Bundled with our internet service (which is way overpriced in my opinion) we pay $30/month for unlimited local & long distance calls. I have to say, it's really nice not to have to think about "can I afford to call?" We are always re-considering our options for high speed service, though.
We have an old AT&T plan that we signed up for in 2004 - it's a pretty good deal, and we couldn't get as good of a package today. That's why we haven't entered any new contracts. We pay $66 a month for our 2 cell phones, free mobile-to-mobile, unlimited nights & weekends, nights start at 7, and 900 anytime minutes. We don't have a home phone. We get our internet through AT&T also - for like $28 a month. I think it's DSL, but it's speed hasn't been a problem at all.
We have comcast currently for Basic Cable and High Speed Internet it costs $60. Then both Mike and I have cell phones - just for my bill it is 45 a month. Soon Mike will be able to switch to Verizon (he is under the church's plan till Dec) then it will be about 66 for the two phones service. We picked Verizon b/c that is what my family all uses so its free calling from verizon customer to verizon. We have looked into DSL which is what we had in NY but their contract is longer and no tv service plus you have to have a home phone line
We have something similar to vonage called viatalk. It runs about $13 a month for unlimited long distance to the us and cananda. Stephen does have a cell from the church that he can use for whatever he needs, and I'm on my in-laws contract and pay $30 a month for my portion.
Josh and I have work-provided cell phones, so this is not much of an issue for us. We pay about $20 a month for local phone service (and about 10 cents a minute for long distance, which we RARELY use, since we have cells and mostly e-mail). Anyway, I wanted to encourage you in potty training. LG was SO easy that I'm not sure I can help much. We got her a potty movie (that had silly encouraging songs), and kept her in panties only(maybe a bow in her hair:). I never put her on the potty just to sit and wait. I just waited until she had to go, and she would go herself. She had a few accidents, but NEVER one time had more than a "wet" accident. She wears big girl panties all the time now, even in the car and for her naps. She wears a diaper to bed, but if we could eliminate night time drinks, I think we could easily fix that. We used stickers as incentives (as her mommy allows no sweets).
Cox is $14.95 a month for their lowest high speed internet package (no problem with the speed), and no landline is required (and we don't have one). We pay $25 a month for our 2 cell phones, but it's because we are on my parents plan for $10/line after the first one costs $60. They only have us pay the $10/line plus fees instead of dividing it up evenly because they were used to paying it before we added on. If we get low on daytime minutes with the cell phones (Dan has to make deputation calls in the day), we use Skype to call long distance. For $14.95/yr (I think it's $29.95 now), we can call unlimited any time of the day to cell phones or landlines in the U.S. or Canada. Of course, with Skype, you're stuck to your computer instead of being mobile like with a cordless landline or cell phone. For $15 a year, though...
You're right -- there are so many options these days.
We just switched internet and phone carriers 2 weeks ago. Were we live we used to only get Verizon and they overcharged us a TON...our phone (unlimited long distance and local) and internet was about $100/month. Way to much but it was a monopoly because they were the only carriers in the area.
Now we have been able to get it through our cable carrier. We get cable, phone (unlimited long distance) and internet for under $100.
Our cell phones run about 80 bucks a month. We have to have a plan with pretty many minutes because of Kevin's business. In my opinion we pay WAY to much for all of this, but remember most of it is for the business too.
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