Freeze Your Communication Costs
Most families these days feel like they can barely make ends meet, never mind have anything left in their wallet to invest. The first step toward financial freedom is cutting expenses below your income. In other words your outgo has to be less than your income. Today we’ll look at cutting communication costs.
Television, radio, Internet access, cell phones, and land lines fees can all add up quickly.
Look for expenses that can be cut
For example you might decide that since you have high speed Internet and a cell phone, that you don’t need a telephone land line as well, so Vonage might be an alternative that will cut your communications expenses.
There will be tradeoffs
Be aware of what you’re giving up. Emergency services aren’t accessible with VOIP voice over Internet protocol the same way they are by dialing 911. That may or may not be important to you. Additionally if there is just one computer in the house, receiving and making phone calls may be inconvenient or interrupting to the person using the computer at the time. The computer may not be easily accessible during evening or late night hours. If it’s upstairs and your bedroom is on the first floor what happens when you get a 2:00 AM phone call?
To bundle or not to bundle
Bundling Internet access, cable or satellite TV and phone service may well result in additional savings over what those services would cost when acquired individually. Be aware that a company like ATT offering the bundling will try to sell you add on services such as call forwarding, that may sound good at the time but that you might not really need. And those add ons won’t be free.
Buy only what you need
Look at what you need. Are premium TV stations, cable or Satellite TV really necessary? It might be if that’s your primary method of entertainment. It may not be if you can use the Internet to access free movies, videos, or TV program. Why pay for movie channels when you usually rent videos through Blockbuster?
Invest those savings
It takes time and effort to go through your communications services and analyze what you really need and how you can obtain those services at a lesser cost. However, the savings will be worth it. Those savings can translate into investments. Rather than spending money on movie rentals from Netflix for example you can invest in their stock and reap the dividends.
