Why pay more?

I love eliminating monthly expenses. About six months ago we got rid of our satellite bill and our phone bill. We now get TV for free and the phone free. All we have to pay for is our high speed Internet connection.

The phone. We disconnected our landline and went for a Voice over IP (Internet) option. When looking into Vonage and other VoIP options we saw an ad at Costco for Ooma. Having never heard of Ooma, we did our research. You have an initial investment of $230 to purchase the equipment, but then there are no montly fees. You have call waiting, instant second line, voicemail, unlimited minutes, unlimited long distance - the works, all for free each month. If you look at the price of unlimited calling on Vonage ($24.99/month) it only takes 7 months to cover the cost of the equipment. We are now at least six months into using Ooma, and I love it. We have never had a problem with it. I will never go back to paying for my home phone.

The TV. We aren't huge TV watchers. When looking at how much we spent on satellite each month it just wasn't worth it for the few times we actually have time to watch TV. (With the DVR, 2nd reciever and the basic package we were paying around $60-$70 a month) We had some initial investments to get to the point we are at. We bought a flat screen TV and a Mac mini. We chose the Mac mini because it was so small (About 6in square by 3 in high). We could have used an existing home computer, but we wanted to have the computer dedicated to the TV. The flat screen TV essentially becomes a giant monitor for the computer.

Online you a can now get full episodes of tons of TV shows. If you use hulu.com you have access to all shows on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, Food Network, HGTV, some PBS shows and a ton of the old classic shows that we grew up with. The kids have tons of their shows available on different sites, for example, Disney Channel has almost all of their shows available, so the kids get their Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place. We can also watch shows from Playhouse Disney, NickJr, PBS kids, and Sesame Street websites. They don't have every single episode available online. Disney Channel usually puts a new episode on every Monday, but takes one off also, so you have about 5 episodes of each show online at a time. It is definitely enough to keep my kids entertained. We always have the option of using our antenna to get any of the local tv stations. (BTW- if you haven't used an antenna since the switch to digital, you should give it a try. Crystal clear reception, and lots of new digital stations. For example KSL (NBC) has three channels, the regular tv, a US sports channel where you can watch any US sporting team compete, and a weather channel.) The best part of the online TV world is that there is only one 30 second commercial for each commercial break. The down side is that you can't fast forward the commercial and it is usually the same commercial for the entire show. My kids are now used to the new way of watching TV and can operate the computer just fine on their own. Another benefit of the online TV world is that most of the shows are in High Definition so you can utilize the HD features of your TV without paying for it. More and more shows are becoming available all the time.

Other benefits of having a computer attached to your TV:
* We can watch DVD's on the computer so we eliminated our DVD player.
* The LDS church's website has some videos online and they have all of their materials online. For Family Home Evening, we can use the Online Songbook to play the music to sing along to, we use the online Gospel Art pictures to teach our lessons, we use the scriptures on the screen so everyone can see them. We can create PowerPoint documents to give a lesson .
* We have our iTune music there so when we just want to listen to some music - say at clean up time - then it is all available.
* We can hook our electronic keyboard (Piano) up to the computer and using GarageBand (a program on the Mac) they can take piano lessons. (We are still figuring this one out)

It didn't take long to get used to watching TV in a different way. It has definitely been worth it. It is amazing how the Internet is changing the way we do everything.

The cell phone. My latest cost saving find is with my cell phone. Aaron just got an iPhone for his birthday. This caused us to have to drop Verizon and move him to AT&T. There weren't a lot of good options for family plans on AT&T for me, so we did some shopping. When looking into my cell phone usage we found that I use probably 50-75 minutes a month. I used to use my cell phone for all long distance calling, but now that I can do that from my home phone, I don't need the cell phone to do that. I basically only use my cell phone for when I leave the house - which is getting less and less frequent. I don't want to give up my cell phone because I like to have it in case of an emergency. I found the perfect plan for me at T-mobile. It is a pay as you go plan. I pay $100 and I get 1000 minutes and/or text messages and I have one year to use them. There is no contract. I am very excited for my new plan. Of course this won't work for everyone. Most people use their cell phone and text messaging way more that I do. For me though, it is another great find to save money each month.

I'm done with my consumer report for the day. I'm not sure why I chose to write about this. I think it is mainly to document the transition into a new way of doing business. Someday it will be fun to look back at it. I remember when my FHE brother at Ricks was telling us that he just got an email account. We were all sitting around listening carefully as he tried to explain this concept of email. I remember walking away thinking it was the dumbest idea and that no one would ever use it. I remember in college having a DOS Word and Excel class and at the same time I was in the first class offered for WordPerfect using Windows. How great has life been since we got rid of DOS! Times have changed so much in so short amount of time. It will be interesting to see what will be next.