Easy Ways to Save Money Part 2
This is part two of my series on ways I have been saving money that have been easy to adjust to. This one focuses on home phone service. I have written others about easily saving money on electricity and changing your mobile phone provider.
If you still have regular “land line” phone service at your home, you are probably wasting some money–it is time to “cut the cord!” Specifically if you have stand-alone phone service from Verizon or some other dial-tone provider you need to think about making changes.
These days people usually fit into four categories of home phone service:
1) People who have totally gotten rid of their home phones and rely strictly on cell phone service.
2) People who have home phone service from a stand-alone “Voice-Over-IP” (VOIP) provider (such as Vonage or Obihai with Google Voice )
3) People who have bundled phone service that comes from their cable TV provider (Comcast, Verizon FIOS…)
4) People who still have old-fashion copper wire service to their homes
Lets have a look at each category to see how they can save more money:
People with no home phone service
The folks in the first category are content with their cell phone service and don’t see the need for a special phone to their home. These folks might still be able to save money by switching to a cell phone provider such as Republic Wireless that has a lower monthly rate than AT&T and Verizon (Republic Wireless is $19.99/month for unlimited data, voice and texting–you can read my Republic Wireless review here). At any rate, more power to these people because they have recognized that for them it is more convenient simply to have no home phone number at all. This is definitely a growing group of people who most likely ported their old home phone number to their cell phones.
People Who Use Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) For Their Home Phone
I fall into this category. I have been using Vonage for my phone service for over 10 years now. The idea is that you use your existing home internet connection to make your phone calls. As long as you have a halfway decent internet connection, this works very well and you can definitely save lots of money with full featured phone service. The gist is that they send you a box and you connect it to the internet in your home. Your phones are connected to the box. I can tell you that Vonage is very low cost and has great plans. If you make lots of international calls you will certainly save good money.
A second, even cheaper VOIP option is to purchase an Obi200 (or better) adaptor and to hook it up to your home phones. You pay for the adaptor once and from there, you home service comes through Google Voice, which is free for calls in the USA. This is slightly less reliable than Vonage. See my full review of the Obi experience in my blog post “almost free home phone service“…
People Who Use Bundled Phone Service
People Who Still Have Old-Fashion Copper Wire Landline Service
People in this category should consider any of the three choices above. You stand to gain more features and a much more flexible phone service. If you have concerns about whether these other solutions would work for you, you an always try them out while keeping your traditional phone service. Once you’re comfortable then pull the plug on your copper wire land line phones. People who have alarm systems that are wired to your phone service may have an extra consideration–you will probably want to contact your alarm provider to see what they suggest.