I'm with you on the cell phones and phone card, Cut-throat. I know people who don't have two nickels to rub together, but everybody in their household (including each kid) has a cell phone. My phone bill is about $18 a month for local service, plus 3.47 cents a minute for long distance calls with my Sam's Club card. By the way, does anyone know of a cheaper LD rate?
Couple of things. First off, I get 2.97c on phone cards from sams and costco locally. I've found sams indexes their prices based on the 'expense' of the local area. My sams is smack in the middle of a moderate welfare town in the next county. My dads is near a lot of moderately affluent people. I see some wide price margin differences. Costco seems to be the same throughout. Hence, look for another sams in a lousy area thats near enough to you.
Next, after looking at the requirements, I found that my income met the requirements for not only 'low income' telephone but also for low income gas and electric. There were no limits on assets, just annual household gross. Works for me because I live alone. Dropped my phone bill from $17 to $5. Dropped 30% off my utility bills. I wouldnt do this if I was taking money or opportunity from other low income people, but these are simply state mandated reductions.
Your best bet for long distance? How about almost free. If you have a cable modem or DSL, look into
www.packet8.com or
www.vonage.com. Both of these will give you a little box called a terminal adapter that plugs into your DSL/Cable router, and offers one or more plain old phone jacks on the back. Plug a phone into it, pick it up, and enjoy free unlimited local and long distance for a fixed monthly charge. International calls are incredibly cheap. Its $19.99 for packet8 and $34.99 for vonage. Also includes a local phone number, people with a regular phone can call you. If you spend a lot on long distance, and dont have a broadband connection, you may be able to afford the $26.95 DSL promo's plus packet8 or vonage and still save money. By the way, these prices include voicemail, caller ID, 3 way calling, and any other special features the phoneco will charge you extra for.
Minimal pro/cons: packet8: cheaper but its a smaller company than vonage, uses a proprietary box they make themselves, uses less bandwidth than vonage, has one setting for voice quality although users say its as good as a landline and better than cell phone, does not support 911 so you need to tape local emergency # to the phone. Vonage: more expensive, uses standard cisco box that other providers also support, has several voice quality settings that may improve your voice qual, bigger company and some report has better customer service, 911 works.
To simplify installation, if you have a 2nd line wired in your house, no landline, or plan to drop your existing landline for this, as many have. Plug in the box and run a phone cord from it to the nearest phone jack. Voila, all the jacks in the house are now on the packet8/vonage line.
With recent phone # portability, you may be able to port your existing phone number.
Note that while vonage/packet8 work everywhere, they only offer limited area codes/phone number exchanges. This does however create another interesting opportunity. Lets say the majority of your LD calls go to friends and family that live in a common area in another state. You can buy packet8/vonage service, choose an area code/exchange thats local to those folks, then plug the unit in at your house. Then not only can you call them for free, they can call you for free as their phone company sees your # as a local call. You may also take your telephone adapter with you anywhere in the world, plug it into a broadband connection, and anyone who calls you will ring the phone wherever you happen to be.
Your best bet on either of these is to find an existing subscriber to give you a reference. This usually gives you a discount or both of you a free month. Snoop around the DSLREPORTS web site or somesuch (search for packet8 or vonage), find a stranger and ask them to refer you.
Lastly on cell phones. I found a small local wireless company (surewest, another is metropcs) that charges $29-$31 a month for unlimited wireless minutes and unlimited calling in most of northern california. When I lived 40 miles away from my fiancee, we both bought these and saved $100 a month each in local LD charges. Saves a TON of money over at*t, verizon, etc. Two caveats: roaming is EXPENSIVE, and the non-roaming calling area is usually more limited than the big cell providers.
! I found that many of the things others feel are needed for the good life, are things I don't particularly enjoy anyways. Most of the things I like are free or very low cost, so living on small budget is a joy and not a hardship!
