Cut Your Telephone Expenses
Lately, do you cringe every time you open your telephone bill?  Are you wondering why you’re maintaining both your home phone and cell phone?  Well consider the following tips to reduce your telephone expenses.
 
Remove Unnecessary Telephone Options:  For example, your package might include features such as three-way calling, call forwarding, unlimited long distance or continuous dialing.  Ask yourself the question:  “Am I really using these features on a regular basis?”  If the answer is “No”, consider contacting your phone company and have those options removed.
Potential Savings: $10.00 per month, $120.00 per year

Research Other Phone Carriers:  Depending on where you live, there might be as many as three or four different phone service providers competing for your business.  Do a little research.  Find out if there are competing service providers in your area.  If so, contact each and ask about their various plans.  You might find you can get as many or even more features for $10 to $20 a month less than what you’re currently paying.
Potential Savings: $10 to $20 per month 

Consider Making Your Cell Phone Your Only Phone:  Most cellular service providers offer family packages with 1,000 or more minutes a month for as little as $49.95 a month. Many of them will even let you add family members for around $6.00 a month.  They may even give you the additional phones free.  Suppose you're now paying $34.00 a month for your conventional service and $39.95 for your cellular service.  That's a total of $73.95 a month.  Drop that conventional service and switch to a family plan at, say, $49.95 a month, plus $12 for two additional phones for a total of $61.95 a month.
Potential Savings: $12.00 per month, $144 per year 

Consider Switching to Voice Over IP:  VoIP, as it is called, is the ability to make telephone call using your already existing internet access.  Now available from more than a dozen different companies, VoIP requires a computer, a high-speed Internet connection (DSL or cable), a special adapter and an ordinary telephone.  VoIP is cheaper than conventional phone service and is not subject to all the same taxes and surcharges—which can almost double the cost of your service—as conventional phone service.  VoIP service can cost as little as $19.95 a month (including calls to Western Europe) and often includes features like call forwarding and voice mail that the conventional phone companies charge extra for.  It’s still a relatively new technology so it’s not perfect.  However, if you have a good internet connection, it works quite well.  I use it myself and I love it.
Potential Savings: $30 to $50 each month