Looking to reduce expenses?

I am always looking for easy ways we can reduce our household expenses. One expense that has always annoyed me is our home telephone bill. They always start your account by saying it is only$24.99....then 10 taxes and surcharges later you end up paying $50-$60 a month.

So my frugal sister told me about her family cancelling their home phone and getting a magic jack. In case you haven't heard of it, it is http://www.magicjack.com/. She was quick to let me know that it wasn't the greatest phone line, but it was worth the cost savings.

With the magic jack, you get unlimited local and long distance, voicemail, and all of the calling features such as call waiting and caller id. For one year of service, it is only $39. For five years, it is only $59. We paid $60/month with our local phone company, so this was a no brainer for me.

It actually works with your existing phones. They send you a usb plug that has a phone jack attached to the other end where you plug in your phone. So the phone line is tied to your computer. There are definitely pros and cons with having your phone tied to your computer. First, if your internet is down then so is your phone. Also, there is some work your security company would have to come out to do to get it tied into your security system.

I would recommend it to anyone who really wants to save some money. BUT I would warn, that it doesn't work perfectly. There is about a 1 second time delay, so that can be difficult. And other times we will have random problems with it. For the most part, it functions well for the cost. If you really don't use your home phone all that much, it would be worth trying out. If you rely heavily on your home phone, it probably wouldn't be for you. Whenever we experience difficulties with it, we just use our cell phones.

Also, they offer a free trial period. So we tried it out before cancelling our home phone. Once we realized that we could live with it, we cancelled our home phone. If you go to the website, you can sign up for the free trial and they will ship it out to you that day.

To save that much money, it is worth the small inconveniences!