| Telephones! |
A phone is pretty much a necessity.
After all you need one to summon help via 911.
You'll need one to communicate with your
employer. And it's nice to have a phone to chase
down bargains and opportunities. A basic home
telephone should be around $20.00 a month plus
taxes and regulatory fees. Since home phone bills
tend to creep up as the subscriber adds features,
this one bothers me but there's an easy way out.
So what's my recommendation? Get the cheapest
landline phone package you can find from your
local telephone provider. Nothing (absolutely
nothing) more than you really need. A phone that
rings and has a dialtone when you pick it up.
You'll want unlimited incoming calls but a limit
on the outgoing is fine as long as you don't
exceed that.
Forget getting the "inside the home line
maintenance package". You can do that
yourself. Dialtone tells you that you can make a
call. That's the "noise" you hear when
you pickup a phone to make a call. Tell the telco
to give you dialtone to the "demarc"
and you'll take over from there. You can find
phone wiring help on the internet. I recommend
this site Home
Phone Wiring.
Don't lease or rent a phone from the telephone
company either. Buy your own phone. There's lots
of cheap phones at discount retailers. The
simpler - the better. Consider getting a bare
bones standard phone first and you can add a jack
for a cordless/wireless telephone if you want or
need one.
Now you have a incoming phone and the ability to
make some outgoing local calls. Here's where you
need and can justify the cost of highspeed
internet. Get Highspeed internet if you don't
already have it. Now get a IP type phone service.
You'll use the IP phone service to make those
long distance calls.
The first one I can recommend is a Magic
Jack. Magic Jacks are cheap
at around $20.00 per year once you buy the Jack
with a years service plan. Another is Vonage.
The one I like is Phone Power and the link is
below. |
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| Cell phones! |
| Get a pay as you go phone. Don't use
it except in emergencies. Take it with you
always. You need a cell phone to call for help
when your car breaks down on the road or there is
a accident or to report crimes, etc. Don't use it
for idle chit chat. Wait until you get home and
call on the house phone. |
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| Two Magic Jack Tricks! |
If you have a Magic Jack there's two
tricks you might find useful. The first deals
with the number you give out for incoming calls.
If you give out your Magic Jack number as your
normal phone you can forward the Magic Jack to
any other telephone.
If you use your Magic Jack with a Laptop and that
laptop has wireless connectivity you can use the
Laptop anywhere there is a wireless connection
which means you can take your Magic Jack with you
whereever you go. |
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| Magic Jack for a
Business Phone. |
| If you're launching a new business
try using a Magic Jack as your initial phone.
It's cheap. Can be portable with any compatible
computer or laptop. And the phone number can be
forwarded into any other phone. |
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| The Magic Jack/Cell
Phone "Important Call" Trick |
| Don't want to miss a important call
but need to go somewhere? Give the caller your
Magic Jack number then forward your Magic Jack
number into your cell phone when you're on the
go. You can do this from any internet connected
PC. Turn it off when you get home or have
highspeed connectivity on your laptop. |
