Three Smart Ways To Reduce Your Monthly Phone Expenditures

These days consumers are definitely feeling the pinch of increasing prices. From the gas pump to the grocery store, costs are leaping higher. But the phone bill is one place where savvy folks can still save. For most people, phone related expenses are a not insubstantial line-item in the typical household budget. Notwithstanding the fact that telecom costs have dropped considerably in recent years, this remains a cost that can be reduced through careful planning. The following three strategies will help you accomplish this goal.

Tip 1: Switch to a shared-use plan for your cell phone bill

According to the Kiplinger Letter, the average cell phone bill in the US runs about $55 a month. You might ask how the average could be $55 given that so many ads for cell phone companies promoting $29 or $39 plans. Part of the reason is that a few power callers spend $79, $89 or more monthly. This is also partly due to taxes and miscellaneous charges such as 411. But a major reason is the fact that cell phone companies hit you on "overage". Let’s say you’ve got 1,000 peak minutes and this month you reach 1,099. At thirty or forty cents per minute in overage, your cell-phone bill suddenly rockets up twenty dollars. Sound familiar? The next month you hit 900 minutes but you don’t see a corresponding reduction on your bill. Some companies say they solve this problem by allowing you to rollover your. And it is true that the rollover does help increase your peak minutes quota for the following. But even then, you still get assessed overage if you exceed your increased peak minutes quota.

Shared use plans are the most elegant solution for this dilemma. Also called "family-plans", these plans allow you to aggregate all of the minutes of 2 or more users into a collective bucket. Since variability is usually a function of individual usage patterns, these variability quotients tend to cancel each other out. Think of it this way: if you and your spouse both have individual plans for 1,000 minutes and in one month you hit 1,100 minutes and your spouse hits 900 minutes, you’re in for overage charges to the extent of 100 minutes. If you have a shared-use plan, your total comes in at 2,000 minutes and there would be no overage!

Tip 2: Stop using your regular long distance phone company to call internationally

Most long distance phone companies offer excellent rates for domestic long distance. If you are a frequent user on a good plan you are most likely paying less than 5 cents on a per minute basis. The problem is that international rates are still relatively high. For instance, fifty cents a minute to South Asia is typical, even if you pay the four or five dollars a month many companies charge to get lower rates.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of superior offerings. Sometimes called "PINLESS" dialing plans, these offerings enable you to call anywhere in the world at rates forty to seventy percent less from your landline or cell phone without needing to dial a pin code. If you type the phrase "cheap international calling" into a search engine you’ll see a lot of options. The basic way these services work is that callers register one or more phone numbers and provide a credit card number. They give you a toll-free number and when you dial this number from a registered phone, you can call internationally without a PIN. Using the above example, you could cut the charge from 50 cents to 15 cents per minute.

Tip 3: Find a free conference calling service

For a lot of families, phone charges escalate because of the need to have multiple conversations between family members on the same topics. It is not efficient but this is the way most of us have learned to cope. In the last few years, there have been literally dozens of companies that have launched free teleconferencing services. All of them work on the same underlying idea: they give you a PIN and a toll number to dial. If all participants dial the same number and enter the same PIN, they are put into a group call. Apart from normal toll charges, there are no charges assessed by the companies. If you have a large extended family, one 30 minute call could most certainly substitute for five to ten one-to-one discussions for planning a trip or family event.

Unfortunately, it is usually somewhat of a hassle to arrange these calls in the first place; consumers often are therefore reluctant to familiarize themselves with the mechanics of setting up a conference call. Rondee is an example of a free conference calling service which is working on addressing this issue. It offers users a way to schedule the conference on-line, have the invitations emailed out and show the responses displayed on the website. As with many corporate grade conference call companies, Rondee enables calls to be recorded.

With consumer prices rising, there’s not a lot most of us can do to fight back. But phone expense is an area where being smart can mean saving a lot. Applying these 3 tips will save the typical user 30% to 50% on a monthly basis, or several hundred dollars yearly.