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Saving on Other Utilities

Home Phone
For more than a year, I've been saying that I'm going to cut off my landline phone. My husband and I use our cellphones most of the time anyway. It seems like a hassle, though, because our Internet comes through the phone, so I'd have to move it to the cable. However, it seems like the smart thing to do. Our home phone runs around $100 a month, and for that, we do get some use out of the Internet, but make only one or two calls per month from the house phone.

Cellphones
 Our contract cellphone worked well for us ... until my family started texting us at every turn. We didn't have unlimited text, and for no more often than we use our phones, we couldn't see paying an extra $20 a month so that we can both get unlimited texting, so every time someone sent one of us a text, we were charged 20 cents. So, I decided to try one of the prepaid Straight Talk phones. Because we don't use our phones all that often, the $30 a month plan worked best for both of us, and $60 a month ($30 for each phone) is the same price we had been paying for our contract phone (until all of the texting started, that is.)I tried it for a month or two, then my husband switched his phone.

We did have two service issues that were very quickly resolved, so I can't complain overall. It's nice, too, knowing exactly what we'll owe each month.

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