My poor younger sister is laughing at me right now. I can’t seem to shut up about the fact that I’ve beaten the phone company at its own game. She knows the deal because she’s the one who led me towards the light. It’s just that she doesn’t have a blog to tell the world about how she’s won. I do, so here I am.
Listen to this – about five years ago, I began thinking that we needed a phone here in the house. Upon moving to Maine and after realizing that we had absolutely no cell phone coverage on our property or anywhere nearby, Laura and I promptly canceled our service. If memory serves, both of those services combined added up to about $100 per month. Laura used Sprint and I used Verizon. The truth of the matter is, neither of us really used our phones after moving up here anyway. Not only because we didn’t have any coverage, but more so because we didn’t have anything to say to anyone. It was a strange time. We sort of landed in Maine and then simply kept quiet. Between you and me, I’ll tell you that it was a very nice time. So very peaceful.
Anyway, after not owning a telephone for about a year, I thought that we better get one. It would be nice to have a conversation or two with someone every so often and if we had an emergency, it would be just as nice to call someone to let them know about it. During a discussion about this with my younger sister, she recommended MagicJack. I said to her, “Yeah, the local phone company here wants $42 per month. That’s a little steep for something I’ll rarely use.” She replied, “Bro! I use MagicJack for only a few dollars per month.” I heard that and looked into it. I liked what I saw.
Here’s the deal. You can stop reading this right now if you have already gotten rid of your home phone service because you own cell phones. If you are one of those folks who still has a phone hanging on some wall at home though, take note of what I’m about to say. It’s very important and it can save you a chunk of change. Especially if you’ve got a home phone that you don’t even use because of all the cell phones floating around your house.
MagicJack is a phone service that uses the internet to work. It’s referred to as a “VoIP” phone service. You will need an internet connection to use MagicJack. We have cable internet that costs around $75 per month. It’s pretty fast, so our phone has no problems at all. To use the service, you’ll need to visit Amazon or the MagicJack website to purchase a small plastic device for around $50. This device gets attached to your router at home. After a quick setup, you’ll plug your existing phone line into the device and have a perfectly functional home telephone with a new phone number. If memory serves, I believe you can actually switch your current phone number over to this new device, so no one is any the wiser about your switch.
Here’s the good part. With this $50 purchase, you’ll also get a year’s worth of phone service. If my math is correct, that’s phone service for only $4.12 per month. Now, at $42 per month for regular phone service through the local phone company, that year would have cost $504. I’m using the $42 per month cost that I can get the service for. Yours may be more or less expensive.
If you think that’s good, just wait until you renew your service. I just did this online about five minutes ago and I paid $130 for five years. That’s 60 months. If I divide $130 by 60, I get $2.17. Yes, that’s telephone service for the home for only $2.17 per month. Can you believe that? If you’ve spoken to me via telephone in the past five years, you’ve used MagicJack. It’s not bad. It’s probably not as great as the more expensive alternative, but man, you have to admit that at $2.17 per month, it’s pretty damn good.
And that, my friends, is how I beat the phone company. I encourage you to look into this dirt cheap alternative to an expensive home telephone service. You already know that you don’t use your home phone that much anyway. It’s probably just sitting there collecting dust while you hesitate to disconnect it. Let me guess, your kids’ friends use it to call. Or, you’ve had it for 20 years and everyone knows the number. I know, I know. Just get rid of it and save some money. I beg you. And when you do, come back here to brag about it.
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