Saving money on the Phone Bill

Our phone bill has three parts...the line rental and toll calls, my cellphone and broadband.

It is a very big bill.

Ways we already save money on our phone bill are by me rarely using my cellphone, and thinking twice about making toll calls.

I only use my cellphone in an emergency. If I need to talk to dh, I ring his cellphone and hang up after three rings. If he is at the office, he calls me back- this saves me time talking to his (grumpy) receptionist. If he is on the road or at a customer's site, he calls me back on his work cell phone. We don;t take advantage of it- I call him quite rarely, and it is a perk he is allowed. He never uses anywhere near the number of minutes he is allowed each month.

Toll calls are an area we can cut down on...but not by much. We get the lowest available rate, and we make very few toll calls. My mother complains about this, but it is how things are. I don't really like talking on the phone (I'd get rid of it completely if I could have the internet without it), and I can contact her on e-mail, and I have a blog detailing what we are up to.

We can also e-mail dh's parents. The only people I can't contact by e-mail are my grandparents, but he phone is not ideal there anyway. It is hard for young people to hear me speak with all the noise in our house, nearly impossible for older folk. I try to write to them, but am pretty slack. I would like to contact them more often. I think there is room there for more, but shorter phone calls.

And then there is broadband...my beloved broadband. We all love broadband. Even the 2 year old enjoys broadband (he likes to watch crocodile videos on You Tube). But, if there is anything we can save money on immediately- it's the broadband.

Now I just need to work out what will suit best. We all want to spend less time on the computer in an effort to consume less electricity. But it isn't going to be easy.

We only save $10 by opting for a lower gb allowance. It hardly seems worth it. But we save over $30 by going to dial-up.

Dial-up means no more turning on the computer and instantly working on what we like. It means no more You Tube (not a big consideration, but the biggest for Tombliboo). It means no more World of Warcraft, but the accounts had run out anyway. I don't think we can even consider getting WoW when we move, but dh doesn't see that yet (or maybe I have missed something). It means taking a lot longer to do anything at all, or does it?

Maybe it doesn't. Only time will tell...I'm off to make the switch.