Talk isn’t Cheap
Posted by mmetz on February 3rd, 2010
Everyone knows the old saying “talk is cheap”. Well guess what? It’s not. These days, communication is one of our most expensive bills. You have bills for the internet, landline service, cell phone service, and internet package on your cell phone. All of these bills add up to a pretty hefty burden every month and the yearly costs can be astronomical! Try some of these communication cost cutting tips and see how low you can get your bills.
No land lovers here: Just about every person has a cell phone these days and if you are one of them what’s the use in hanging on to a landline. It’s time to ditch the landline and the bills. If you just want it for emergencies then consider calling your phone provider and removing some extra features like voice mail or three-way calling to reduce your monthly payments.
VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol services are a popular alternative to landlines if you have to have a phone in the house. These types of phones transmit your voice over the internet instead of a landline. This is a much cheaper alternative because VoIPs are billed by the megabyte not the minute and other features such as caller id, automatic redial, and call forwarding are free of charge.
Some people have an issue with these types of phones because the emergency services such as 911 have a difficult time locating your address if you do not register your address with Enhanced 911 feature most providers support.
Reduce your use: Put yourself on a strict minute diet and stay off the cell phone! Find a plan that gives you free nights and weekends and indulge in long chat sessions at those times. Most cellular providers allow free calls and texts to others in their network, so see what your friends and loved ones have to cut even more minutes. Once you get used to using a minimal amount of minutes, cut the minutes on your plan. Just be careful not to go over after the cut.
A big cost to cell phone users is the data plan. Any internet ready smart phone is required to have a data plan which can cost around thirty dollars a month. It really isn’t necessary to have the internet in your pocket at all times, so downgrade to a regular phone. After all, you bought a cell phone to make phone calls!
You’re out of the band: Bandwidth that is. Look at how much bandwidth you are paying for each month and assess if you really download that much. If you are using the internet to just read entertaining and informative blogs like MoneyLounge, then you really don’t need to be paying for enough bandwidth to download music, play games online, and watch streaming movies at the same time.
You could easily save over a hundred dollars a month by taking a communication diet and reassessing your connectivity needs. So make talk cheap again, your wallet will thank you.
What’s the cheapest or most expensive phone bill you’ve received?
Photo By: Nichollsphotos // CC 2.0
One Response to “Talk isn’t Cheap”
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VoIP phones are actually pretty cool – you can take your phone number with you on vacation if you want!
Also, you CAN get the iPhone without a data plan, making the monthly bill much more affordable – and you can just mooch off of free wireless when you need the internet.
Great article