Save Money On Your Phone Bill

Save Money On Your Phone Bill


Do you have huge phone bills? Between home phone, long distance, cell phones, family plans, text messaging, it all gets overwhelming and expensive. Below are my tips on reducing your phone bills.

1. Drop the land line: The first tip to save money on the phone bill is to drop the land line. Some times this can be challenging especially if you have kids that don't have cell phones however most do. So if you can drop the land line, and just rely on the cell phones, do so and you can save a minimum of $35 per month or more.
2. Drop the features: If you can't part with the land line the next best way to save money on your phone bill is to start dropping features from the land line. If you can get down to the bare bones you will save the most money. For example drop the long distance service, save $2.50, use a calling card instead, drop call waiting, save $4 per month, I hate call waiting, there is nothing more iratating than when you call someone and they say hang on just a minute I have another call. They put you on hold to find out it was only some sales call. It really shows you how you rank in their world.
3. Calling cards: We have been buying calling cards from Sam's Club forever. These are great for making long distances calls. It is like $.04 per minute which is a pretty good deal. We usually buy the 1000 minutes at a time for $40. Consider using these for kids in college as well.
4. Cell Phone Family plans: I haven't gone down this path yet because I am still too cheap however, a lot of people get the family plans for their cell phones. Some programs allow you to get 4 or 5 phones and you can share your minutes and texting. I think it is a good idea however the programs start at around $70 per month. It is still a little to rich for me.
5. Free Texting: Did you know that if you have a Yahoo account that you can text on yahoo for free. This works out great for teenagers because they can text their friends for free. You just goto Yahoo mail and click on the new button and then click SMS. Pretty cool, you don't have to pay $.15 per message to either send or recieve.
6. Buy a texting package: As most of us know that have teenages, kids don't talk to each other anymore. No sense in picking up the land line and talking to each other when you can get on AIM or text message someone on your cell phone. Anyway my kids wanted to text more so they bought a monthly package at ATT which gives them 1000 texts for $10 per month. Its is a good deal and get the cost of texting down to $.01 per messages.
7. Bundling: Make sure you investigate bundling your service providers. Determine which one is better for you the cable company or the phone company. Both offer TV, internet, calling etc. Make sure you find our what the fixed prices is including taxes. Don't be fooled by just taking the introductory offer of 12 months at $100. It could go up a lot after the introduction is over.
8. Pay as you go cellular: If you are not doing the family plan on your cell phone. Consider switching to a pay as you go phone. We buy the $100 ATT card which last for a year. We end up using it up in 6 months, however $200 per year is a great deal for a cell phone. The only down side is if you want one of the coolest latest phones then you are going to have to shell out some initial investment for the actual phone. Like $200 to $300. However, if you consider the minimum cost for a cell phone contract is $40 per month which is $480 per year the payback is pretty quick.
9. Skype or other VOIP: If you do a lot of long distance consider using Skpe or another VOIP provider. You can make long distance calls for $.02 per minute to places like Japan and Europe. Pretty amazing. If you buy the package you can get almost unlimited calling for around $25 per month. Skype especially works well when you are traveling overseas and you want to call home and chat for an hour. You can even install Skype on your cell phone.

Saving Money Reducing Expenses In A Recession

Saving Money Reducing Expenses In A Recession

I saw a great article called Recession Diet Just One Way to Tighten Belt in the New York Times. There a ton of ways to save money and reduce your expenses.  Even though our government officially does not state that we are in a recession, most people think we are already in one. Therefore, most people are think of ways to save money.  Here are some ideas from the article along with my own ideas.

1. Set a budget:  First of all, do you have a budget?  If not get one, especially for descreationary items like dining out, gifts, and entertainment.
2. Cut back: If you are already spending a lot of money on home entertainment, such as cable, Netflix, XM radio, and so on and still going to the movies or clubs, you might want to think about cutting something out?  Skip the movie theater and watch the DVD instead.
3. Brown bag it:  If you have a habit of going out to lunch with your buddies make a change and start brown bagging it.  Going out to lunch can cost as little at $3.50 for Subway to $15 if you get a salad, sandwich, and a cola at Friday's.  You don't have to completely stop going out however, just dropping 2 lunches a month could save as much as $30 per week or $120 per month.
4. Order Pizza: Dining out can be a big expense, especially with a family.  Skip the Friday night out and buy the two $5 pizza specials and eat at home.
5. Skip the drinks:  When you eat out drinks such as cola or adult drinks are expensive.  If you are a family of 4 then you could spend $8 extra on the meal just ordering pop and ice tea.  Alcohol is even worse.   A beer at home is $.50 to $1 depending on what you are drinking.   Eating out you can pay $2.50 to $10 or more per drink.  Skip it.  Buy it at the store and have the drink when you get home.  For example, like gin and tonics.  I bought Seagrams Gin with Lime for around $10 per fifth.  I think I can get at least 10 to 12 drinks out of it.  
6. What's on special: When you are food shopping make sure you grab the specials paper when you enter the store.  All of the stores run specials.  Don't be afraid of the $2 per pound chicken.
7. Do more work:  I was just in the grocery store today, boneless skinless lean chicken breasts are $5 per pound, chicken legs and thighs were $1.19 per pound?  You can remove the skin yourself?  It saves almost $4 per pound.  Wow!
8. House brands:  House brands can save you a lot of money.  When you are buying cereal or shampoo make sure you check out the house brand.  Compare the ingredients.  Most of the time they are the same.  Besides who do you think is making the house brand.  Most likely it is the same company that makes the brand name.
9. Buy in bulk:  Buying in bulk can save you money.  You need to know you cost per item and you have to watch the quantities.  It takes some work but it can save you money.
10. Skip the value meal: Ever notice how the fast food place always wants to sell you the value meal?  Thats because it is more expensive.  Skip the value meal and just order off the value menu.