Have you ever had a bully on the playground or on the school bus ride home? You know the drill–you try not to make eye contact. You walk completely around the playground just to keep from being seen by them.
There was a guy in high school that liked to pick me up and give me an airplane spin in the hallway whenever he found me and was feeling particularly strong. I learned that if I just let him do it, it would be over faster. Deep down inside though, I rather he left me alone.
About six months ago I was hanging out in our kitchen with Kaley when I glanced over at one of the bullies in my life, the Phone “Bill”. “Bill”, as I will refer to him, was sitting on our counter staring me down. Bill had been kicking us around for years and it seemed there was nothing I could do. Every month he beat me up in front of my wife and boys.
This day was different.
I was tired of getting bullied so I grabbed Bill and picked him up, his feet dangling off the floor. He was trembling in my hands as I stared him down. I decided right then and there that I was going to make a call and have someone “take care of Bill”, if you know what I’m saying (cue the Mobsters and cement boot references).
By the time I was done with Bill he was quite literally HALF the man he used to be.
I made the call and walked through our current bill with our phone company. What I realized is that we were paying around $5.00/month for the “right” to only pay $.07/per minute when making long distance calls. Go back and read that again. Somehow that doesn’t sound like much of a ‘deal’ to me.
Our solution for long distance is OneSuite.com. We pay less than $.03 cents per minute with no monthly fee. Yes, less than 3 pennies per minute. OneSuite works similar to a calling card, but you can add the number into your speed dial to simplify things.
We estimate that we’ve saved ourselves approximately $20 a month since making that one phone call. If my math is correct, that’s $240 a year. Not bad for 10 minutes of my time.
How about you? Have you had success in cutting corners with your phone bill? Or are you still getting kicked around? What other ways have you learned to cut corners?
Bill still kicks us each month, but it only hurts half as much as it did before.
I use ooma. I paid $190 for it and haven’t paid for it since. You by the ooma and then for the rest of your life it is free. Now that is a good deal. It paid it for itself in 5 months since my old bill was around $40 a month.
We used to pay $38 a month for the phone bill. We switched to Viatalk (online service), and now we pay $9 per month. For $9 we have all the crazy amenities that we could not afford before. The only downfall is that you need to have a cable modem (Roadrunner).
Charles- I just called and told them my bill was just too high and I was thinking about cancelling. They offered me a plan for new customers. $32 plus taxes for both DSL and phone.
Wes, you make me laugh! (‘”Bill”, as I will refer to him, was sitting on our counter staring me down.’)
@Abigail’s Mommy: How did you cut your phone/DSL bill in half? I’d love to do the same!
I cut my phone/DSL bill in half for 12 months last January. I also got $10 off my DirectTv bill for 12 months. Well worth the time to call!
I just posted about something similar. I had sticker shock when I saw our energy bill this month, so I had to get on the phone and see what I could work out to lower our bill before the summer hits us hard here in Texas. Great job getting you phone bill worked out!
http://thrivinghomelife.blogspot.com/2009/04/saving-money-look-at-your-bills.html