I Saved $372 On My Home Phone

Everyone loves to save money right? So when it came time for me to examine my home phone bill I knew it was time to revisit my monthly payments and review what real utility I was receiving from a land line phone. Now before I get all those comments about how it is the 21st century and who has a land line anymore, let me just say that there are still some merits to a traditional land line phone in your home. Besides, my wife insisted we keep our longtime number. I am here to tell you that there are home phone options out there besides your local telco.

 

So here are the numbers. Essentially, our monthly home phone bill was about $35 a month. It varied a little higher or lower depending on the taxes and fees charged for that particular month. Now, what did this $35 a month really give us? Not much. We had no long distance service and calling out of our area code was a “local toll call” as the phone company liked to advise me each time I called to ask about certain charges. So in essence, all we had was a phone that we couldn’t call out, unless we wanted to incur extra toll charges and all it was really good for was for receiving calls. At $35 a month or about $420 a year, depending on fees and tolls, for a phone that was pretty much useless I knew a change had to be made. I mean what’s the point of paying for something that you can barely use? Enter, Ooma, an Internet phone.

 

Ooma is a digital box you plug into your existing high speed modem that allows you to make unlimited calls from your phone with your current number for “free.” Now, free is in quotes because you still have to pay regulatory fees and taxes for your city. See, even though Ooma is a digital phone service the “powers that be” consider it a phone utility so those taxes and fees must be paid. But here is the kicker, those fees in our area come out to about $4 a month. Alas, we have a home phone for a fraction of the cost and the best part we can actually use it now. We have unlimited calling nationwide without any additional fees or tolls. Just $4 a month and we are set.

 

For those that are curious, we have been using Ooma for about 8 months now with zero issues. The call quality is perfect and we have become less reliant on an expensive cell phone bill as all our nationwide calls can be made for free from our home thus saving us cell phone minutes. So let’s take a closer look at the numbers.

 

After switching to Ooma as a land line alternative our monthly phone bill went from $35 a month (without really using it) to $4 a month (chatting up a storm long distance) saving us about $31 a month or $372 a year. Maybe put that extra money into a nice dividend payer like AT&T, Inc. (T) or Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ).

 

Do you still have a land line at home? Still paying crazy monthly phone bills?

17 thoughts on “I Saved $372 On My Home Phone”

  1. Wow awesome tip! This is my first hearing of Ooma and have to admit I am impressed. Provides one heck of a service and at a price that anyone can afford. Not only that you can take the money from the savings put it into a dividend payer! Great stuff!

    -Davey Pockets

    Reply
    • Thanks for stopping by. I know that it’s 2014 and many people don’t have a land line at home but for those that do Ooma is a great alternative. I really don’t know why it’s not more widely known like Vonage or other IP phones out there. It really is so cheap and for $4 a month it was worth it for us to keep a land line.

      Reply
    • I hear you. Many people are just like you but we figured for $4 a month we could afford to keep a land line and really reduce our cell phone bill by making a lot of our calls from home. I actually will write another post about how we saved even more money switching cell phone carriers. Stay tuned.

      Reply
  2. Have you compared with Magicjack at all? I work from home and am on the (*&^ing phone for hours/day and the MJ never lets me down. It is infinitely better than the Vonage I used to have and super cheap. Swarmy company, but the thing works.

    Reply
    • Yup… we considered MagicJack but some of the reviews have been questionable and at the time you needed tp have it plugged into a computer. I realize Ooma at about $48 a year is more than MJ but it’s a cost we are willing to pay and Ooma has so many other features we don’t even use. You can plug it into a wall jack and it can make every wall jack in your phone have a line plus many more things. Vonage is just way too expensive.

      Reply
  3. Yah i cut my home line years ago. I just use my cell phone and apps like skype and magic jack. I moved a few years ago to an area with horrific cell phone reception and had to switch carriers but still reception is quite weak. I may have to look for a more dedicated reliable home line soon enough.

    anyways great blog. I find it very useful

    Reply
    • Thanks for the comment. DivHut is a very new site I started to track my dividend stories and inspire others to invest in their future as well. If you live in an area with such bad cell reception a home line might be a good bet. At least you’d be able to call out in case of emergency.

      Reply
    • Glad I could introduce you to Ooma. We found it to be a great alternative to a traditional home line and we have had no problems since we started with them. Check back on DivHut soon as I will share how I saved even more money with a pretty new cell service that most people never heard of.

      Reply
    • Hi Marie,

      It’s amazing how many options we have now for almost free home phone service and greatly reduced cell phone service as well. There is no need to pay crazy high prices any more for either service. Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply
  4. I recently eliminated my landline and cable TV, so my monthly expenses went from $200 down to $30 per month! Now I can watch TV shows on Netflix, Hulu at a fraction of the cost. Not missing on any of the mindless stupid live TV shows I used to watch!

    Also, I’m in the process of cutting all my other bills as well. It helps to learn about what other people like me are doing and how they are saving money. If they can do it, I can too!

    Our website helps you with that. We help people establish new savings behavior by comparing their spending and savings habits to people like them who live in the same neighborhood. It’s like “Keeping up with the Joneses” but in reverse. If people know that their neighbors are spending less on their cable bill, they are more likely to lower their cable bill as a result. Our website https://aboutlife.com/ shows you how you compare to your neighbors. Check it out. 🙂

    Reply
    • Hi Lidia,

      We cut our cable bill in October 2009 and haven’t looked back. There are dozens of alternatives for viewing on the Internet for much lower pricing than a monthly cable bill. The reality is that if most people simply take an audit of their monthly recurring bills they’d be better equipped to manage their finances and be able to save hundreds per year without even feeling it. We lowered our home phone bill to about $4 a month and pay for two cel phones under $30 a month, taxes included. Thank you for stopping by and commenting.

      Reply
  5. We use DSL for internet, so I don’t think I can cut the land line and still do that; need to do some more investigation. Dish was cancelled last year after 17 years, bought a Roku and an aerial antennae, along with the Amazon Prime subscription, we’re pretty set.

    Reply
    • Hi DH,

      You can cut the land line for phone. Just use DSL for Internet and get an Ooma like we did. It’s a box that plugs into your DSL modem and you can make VoIP calls for about $4 a month nationwide unlimited. Like you I’m also using old school rabbit ears for TV. Free TV. The way it was always meant to be. How we lost our way over the decades. Keep saving those hard earned dollars. Thank you for commenting.

      Reply

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