Today is one of those days I just want to yell at the top of my lungs. I got my Verizon phone bill today. It was like a slap in the face! Here I thought I had made a great decision that was going to save us money, but nope- I'm staring at a $100.00 phone bill. That includes our dsl, but $70 is just from the phone alone. I signed up for the new "freedom essentials" plan they just recently offered in my area. $50 to cover local & unlimited long distance plus caller id & other stuff. But I didn't account for almost $20 in fees & taxes.
That simply won't fit in my meager budget. So it's back to the drawing board I go- time to review my choices again. The problem is we've tried so many things with our phone bill that I'm frustrated.
In the past we've learned several things:
1) Long distance is a must for us
2) We really hate using 10-10 numbers & phone cards
3) Vonage works great but there isn't a local number, so we still need a landline
4) Using cellphones can be more expensive
5) Caller Id is something we really, really, really love & use all the time
I'm going about this smarter than before. I'm doing some serious searching and using my calulator to figure out what my bill would be after all the stupid fees. How low I can get my phone bill depends on if I can convince DH that we can try and do without caller id. I've come up with two options- both will use Pioneer for long distance that I found at
(BTW- Can anyone give me some tips on making my stuff like I have below line up right?)
Option A with Caller ID:
30.95 Local Pkg w/ features
3.25 Intrastate access
6.50 Interstate access charge
40.70
1.223% Fed tax
2.44 6% State tax
44.36
.19 Emergency Service
.69 Fed. Universal fee
45.29 Sub-total
29.95 DSL
2.70 Supplier fee
77.89 Total
Monthly Savings: about $20
Option B w/o Caller ID:
19.17 Basic Local Plan
3.25 Intrastate access
6.50 Interstate access charge
28.92
.87 ]3% Fed tax
1.74 6% State tax
31.53
.19 Emergency Service
.69 Fed. Universal fee
32.41 Sub-total
29.95 DSL
2.70 Supplier fee
65.06 Total
Monthly Savings: About $35
I'm opting for Plan B and just suffering without caller ID. I figure we can screen our calls other ways. Our phones have a "distinctive ring" we can set for numbers stored in the phone. We've never used it, but I'm gonna haul out the manual & check into it. Also we can let the answering machine pick-up first, but I don't like that idea. Or just simply hanging up or making an excuse. I don't favor that option either. But I'm willing to try if it'll save us an additional $15/mo.
The other thing I found is that Verizon offers 2 DSL speeds- the one I get is up to 3.0 Mbps for $30/mo. The have one thats up to 768 Kbps for $15/mo. I don't know how much the difference in speeds would be. It'd save us an additional $15/mo but I don't want to get stuck in a year contract and find out that it's not much better than dial-up.
September 7th, 2006 at 06:09 am 1157605794
there is some people in your building with laptops that are looking for a deal like that .
September 7th, 2006 at 12:22 pm 1157628163
April 9th, 2009 at 08:49 pm 1239306593