Reducing Your Telephone Bill

Image credit Tomomarusan (commons.wikimedia.org)

Most people nowadays heavily rely on mobile phones for their daily communications to the point that they sometimes forget they have a landline connection at home.

Telephone bills, however, come on a regular basis, usually every month. If often neglected, this could lead to problems such as having an expensive bill or, worse, permanent disconnection of the service.

If you want to retain your phone line connection at home and avoid huge monthly bills at the same time, allow me to share some pointers here for you. This comes from my personal experience so listen up. These tips could definitely help you save money!

1. Get rid of the voicemail

Telephone companies often encourage their subscribers to take advantage of voicemail features. Actually, you can get rid of this extra service. An answering machine pretty much does the same job. If you’ll do some computations, you’ll even discover that it’s often less costly to purchase your own answering machine than to pay for voicemail every single month.

2. Switch to a per-call package

Since we’re mostly using mobile phones, a per-call plan is definitely a money-saving option. Inquire with your provider if this alternative is available. This is very effective because you will only pay for the times and days you actually use their service instead of having to pay big bucks all the time.   

3. Use the internet when possible

Another idea is to take advantage of online technology whenever possible. Try to avoid excessive phone use because frankly, that’s not the only way to get in touch with people. Take note that international calls, in particular, are way more expensive than local calls.

For example, you may want to use Skype and other similar services as you make calls to a different country. If you have a webcam, then that’s even better because you can have video call.

Electronic mail also lets you send messages anywhere in the world. Your message will hit the recipient’s inbox in seconds. This also gives you the chance to practice writing long letters - a forgotten art in these days of SMS prominence.

Conclusion

An additional tip here is to refer to your monthly statements and try to determine which calls are costing you expensively each month. I did this several times and upon identifying the culprit, I made adjustments to my usage (I kept those calls as brief as I can) and it surely helped me decrease my phone bills.  

You may also like:

Telephone Savings Tips (puco.ohio.gov)

9 Reasons to Keep Your Landline (tdstelecom.com)