As 2011 began, I am sure my long time readers know I sat down to do our annual "family" exam of our finances. We do this each year to ensure that our expenses are as low as they possibly can be, so that we are not just continuing to pay bills because they happen to be there.
What is important to look at? Everything! We pull our checking statement out and go through every payment we make over the months to see what we can reduce. This includes, but is not limited to: auto insurance, home insurance, electricity/gas, TV, telephone, internet, life insurance, cell phone bills, groceries, garbage, etc.
You will find, your family can lower their expenses for the year by hundreds and hundreds of dollars or more! If you haven't called your providers yet, now is the time! Read here on how to get your cable lowered if you use cable or satellite. You can do this with other providers as well: telephone, internet, garbage, etc, if you have competition for these services.
Today, I wanted to share how we saved $480 this year and have FREE telephone. We were paying approx $40 for our telephone each month ( this was just telephone and our internet is on top of that ) and added up to the $480 annually.
One of my readers wrote me early last year to tell me about Ooma. I had never heard of it, but I decided to test it for everyone. And, boy am I glad I did. We have been using it since last year and loved it. So, we decided to cancel our telephone from Cincinnati Bell and move exclusively to Ooma. We have had no problems except wondering where our monthly phone bill went?
Ooma is a box you buy that works like VOIP, or companies like Vonage. It connects through your High Speed Internet, so you do have to have this service already.
What I like about it?
- It is FREE ( depending on your state, you may owe state taxes. )
- I was able to port my old phone number over
- You can connect it so all your wall phones, cordless phones, etc work
- It comes with many additional services: Free unlimited long distance in country, Free voicemail, Free caller ID, Free Call waiting, etc
- It has 911 capabilities
- It is as clear as my home phone and no one has noticed a difference
You can go here to see current prices on Amazon.
You can also read about Ooma on their website here or go to Best Buy and buy through them, but they do seem to charge more than Amazon.
My recommendation and what we did:
1. Look at your current phone bill to see how long until you paid $200 and it would be free for you.
2. Order it and install it IMMEDIATELY so you can use the 30 day money back guarantee to see if you like it. We installed it only to ONE cordless phone and used that phone to call people. We did not want our home phone number shut off until we tested it.
3. After 30 days, if you decide to keep it then port your old phone number over. Otherwise, return it on time to get your money back.
4. Once your old phone number is ported over, then connect it to all your phones in the house.
To have free phone month after month, we have been ecstatic. The savings to us year after year is huge. I hope this new company will help your family also save as much as us.
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