Have You Got A Deal For Me?

My husband and I, both rather ancient by many of your standards (he’s 53 and I’m 52) need just a tad of advice on how to lower our communications costs.

Now, lest you think I’m only angry or bored with my current services, and am just in the market to switch to something new—well, you might be onto something.

I already mentioned in this space my intention to ditch cable TV altogether, but guess what? Evidently, we’d rather switch than ditch, because we ended up moving from DirecTV to Dish Network. It’s ten bucks less per month to keep basically all the channels we currently have, plus we get that DVR thingie. Kind of like TiVo, if I understand it correctly.

Don’t let me fool you. When Doug tries to explain TiVo to me, I just lose it. How can you be recording something at the exact same time you’re playing it back? Or is that really what he said? I don’t know, people. And I’m not sure I want to know.

Our cell phone family plan is a huge issue right now, and it’s not just because the two grown kids who are members of the fam use most of the shared minutes. It’s also because Doug and I often fail to keep our cells near our bods. So if a member of our closeknit group tries to call us using (I think this is correct) free minutes, we don’t answer because, well…we’re too old to chase phones. We wait for them to call us on the regular old landline phone, which happens to be on the desk or bedside table right next to us, and they always do.

But I suppose that kind of defeats the purpose of those free minutes from fam member to fam member, huh?

Last month, the two kids used 850 of the 1000 shared minutes. Doug used a few over 100 (and he’s running a corporation) and my phone registered a measley 26. Honestly, someone must have taken a turn at my phone, because I haven’t spoken 26 minutes on it in the last year. I can’t hear on the darned thing, because of being deaf in one ear, so I don’t even try.

Then why did you get your own cell phone, silly? you might be asking. Because, of course, it only added $9.99 to our monthly bill. And don’t discount peer pressure.

On top of the 850 shared minutes the kids used, they also accumulated another 500+ minutes of the type that are nebulously described on my invoice as “other.”
Not on-peak or off-peak or on-plan or off-plan or roaming or in-area—just other.

Thanks for that, Verizon Wireless.

One of these grown children is going to be out of the country for ten months starting in late August. The other is also grown. My feeling is that since we are no longer of child bearing age, we should not have to invest in any further “family planning,” and that includes family plans of the cell phone variety.

What do you think?

If one adult child went on the “me and my friends” plan and the other went on the “buy a cheap phone in a foreign country and load it with prepaid minutes” plan, then we could dump my phone and Doug could have a cell phone for business, just like the old days. Hmmm….sounds like a plan.

I’m not sure what the very cheapest way will be for the adult child in the foreign county to call the U.S. on a semi-regular basis. Anyone have any ideas? Calling cards? Skype? What exactly IS Skype?

I did it one day with my friend Mary DeMuth, who lives in France, but I was younger then and I didn’t know what we were getting into. We had a Skype fling, I guess you’d say, but I swear I haven’t done it since. Now Doug is looking over my shoulder and says that I didn’t go too far with Mary—we only used Skype to instant-message an interview she did here at fallible. He says Skype is a also voice dealie—wow!

Then while I’m learning that little tidbit, I get an email from my friend Will Samson. In an earlier email, he said I should “chat him up” sometime if I needed more information for an article I’m proposing. I know that Will was raised by a Scottish parent, as was I, but my dad never said “chat me up.” I had a feeling Will meant something else entirely, something that might have been included in that suspicious-looking secret code of links underneath his signature line.

“What precisely is meant by chat up?” I asked in all my elderly innocence.

He just now responded that it can mean using any of the instant messaging thingamabobs, as well as Skype (there’s that word again!) and Gizmo. Gizmo! Are any others of you out there using Gizmo? We need a free or very extremely cheap way to communicate long distance.

Our other communication prob is our regular phone line. It’s all AT&T now, I guess. It was SBC, but you know how these things go. We used to have cable Internet, but now I think we have DSL through AT&T. Not cheap enough, IMO. We also have two phone lines. Doug uses the home phone quite a bit for business, but so much that we need another line? Why? We’ve got caller ID on both lines, and CallNotes, as well. Something tells me this is significant overkill.

We do need a phone line for Internet and fax, but hey—here’s something else I don’t get: How come people who have no phones in their homes except cells have Internet access? With both wi and fi? Please explain that to me, because something’s gotta give over here.

Okay, look. I happen to know you savvy techie types are holding your communication expenses down to a low roar and what I need to know now is HOW? You’re young, you’re hip, you’re smart, you’re attractive. Please help us out here!

All we really want is to be more like you. As long as you don’t advise text messaging.

Posted by Katy on 06/19/06 at 01:50 PM

Fallible Comments...

I'm as ancient as you and Doug are, Katy, and much less knowledgeable about all the new forms of communication. We still have a "landline" with a CORDED phone (along with various cordless and cell phones, like you). But I'm keeping that thoroughly plugged-in thing until they get 911 calls truly worked out for cells/internet phones and until cordless phones work during power outages and cell phone batteries never die. AND no one on a police scanner can listen in on the corded phone....only the government. :)
Posted by Anne on 06/19/06 at 03:39 PM
It does get a little overwhelming, doesn't it?

I don't have any great answers for your questions (probably because I'm only a few years younger) - but I can sing the praises of Skype. My friend in England and I use it for talking fairly regularly.

For skyping - you need a microphone (mine is built into my Powerbook laptop - my friend has a headset with a speaker and and microphone that she uses on her PC) and a speaker. I don't leave Skype on all the time and receive random "phone" calls - instead, I arrange a time to talk with my friend through email, then we plan to "meet" at a specific time and skype together.

I don't think Skype is so good at replacing a phone - if my friend needed to get ahold of me right away to talk (like some kind of emergency), she would have to use the regular phone. There is no way I could guarantee being at my computer to hear random incoming calls. But it works great for pre-arranged chatting within a specific time period that I am willing to be sitting at my computer.

As to how it works? I have a degree in computer science, and I can barely grasp what's happening with most of this stuff... and I've never Instant Messaged anyone. That may change as my 12-year-old gets a little older...
Posted by Chris(tine) on 06/20/06 at 01:18 AM
Skype rocks!

And, gee Katy, I thought I meant more to you than a mere skype fling! LOL!

We use skype in many ways. I talk to my friends using a headset, and like Chris(tine), we set a time to do so. Otherwise it's too hard to hear my computer ringing from three floors away.
Posted by relevantgirl on 06/20/06 at 10:16 AM
Anne--Girl, with age comes wisdom! And I think you've got you some. I'm hanging on to my land line, too. I ain't afraid of no gubment eavesdroppers. :)

Chris(tine)--We instant messaged a bit when our oldest son, Scott, spent a semester abroad--or maybe it was when he backpacked ALONE through Asia for three weeks. But I don't really have the hang of it. I'm too slow to keep up with young minds.....Thanks for sharing the ropes on Skype. We will definitely be using it with another kid overseas!

Relevant Mary--I was kidding. We are no casual fling, you and I. Real deal, baby! I hope I can hear with the headset thingie. The deafness is problematic. But true loves always finds a way, as you and I can testify... :)
Posted by Katy on 06/23/06 at 07:05 AM
Skype is great for foreign calls...it's like 0.01 a minute to call out of country, depending on where. Check it out, seriously.
Posted by Lynn on 06/25/06 at 04:34 AM
Oh, and if she gets Skypeout credit, she can call your house phone. That's what I meant. Computer to computer it's free.
Posted by Lynn on 06/25/06 at 04:41 AM
We use iConnectHere.com to call and receive calls from the States (we're in Germany). You (and by "you", I mean my techie husband) can forward the service to a phone. So no computer headset thingy. We have one phone for our iconnect number and one for our local number. And my husband did something that causes the call to rollover to our German phone if the other phone isn't working for some reason.

The iconnect number has the same area code as where we used to live, so our friends and family don't pay any more long distance calling us here than they did when we lived in the States.

The clarity of the connection can vary, though, depending on how busy the Internet or our individual DSL connection is.
Posted by Jennifer on 06/26/06 at 02:34 PM
Lynn--Whoa, baby! I can afford that! We are definitely doing Skype or something similar. Gotta stay in touch with my baby. Thanks!

Jennifer--Thanks for telling me about this one. I had not heard of it. It looks like we'll have our choice of several great options. Glad you are able to stay in touch with your loved ones so cheaply!
Posted by Katy on 06/27/06 at 11:11 AM
well, although i'm 33 and act way younger than that, i am afraid i won't be much help. i can't stand mobile phones, and if i didn't need one for work, i would definitely never carry one. i ditched the land line years ago, and basically use the internet wherever free wi-fi (i have no idea what that even stands for) can be found. as far as skype goes, it sounds suspiciously like some sort of a rodent. in any event, i was laughing so hard by the end of this post and thought i would offer you ... nothing at all, but a thanks for the laugh.
Posted by joshua on 06/29/06 at 08:45 PM
Joshua--Yea! A man after my own heart. I deplore mobile phones. We are ditching mine as soon as our contract is up (costs $175 to break a contract with Verizon!!!). It only costs $10 month as an add-on phone, but I don't use it AT ALL. Don't even know my number. We will keep Doug's phone and our land line, but will reduce services on the land line by quite a bit---too many trick ponies for me. Thanks for sharing in the laugh!!!!
Posted by Katy on 06/30/06 at 09:12 AM
As for internet without a phone line, that one's easy. Ours is through the cable line, and we pay with our cable bill. It's high-speed and is great! I'm ready to totally ditch our land line phone because that's the one that WE never really use. We did the opposite of you...we switched from DishNetwork to cable and couldn't be happier. The cable doesn't go out in storms, in high winds, or just for no good reason at all. Our dish was always going out for days at a time. It was awful. As for texting, be happy you don't have teenagers. We finally got unlimited texting for all ($10 a month deal total for family) because the kids were texting about 2000 messages per month. Remember the old days when we just picked up a corded phone and called friends? Doesn't happen. (I've known some kids who have used about 10000 texts a month! Unreal.)

I admit, though, that I enjoy all the new forms of communication. I love cell phones, wireless internet, and high-speed cable internet. I am becoming way too technologically saavy than I ever thought I'd be...
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Posted by tit on 07/12/06 at 03:27 AM
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Posted by BoyptowAeropephota on 08/26/09 at 12:07 AM

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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Have You Got A Deal For Me? My husband and I, both rather ancient by many of your standards (he’s 53 and I’m 52) need just a tad of advice on how to lower our communications costs. Now, lest you think I’m only angry or bored with my current services, and am just in the market to switch to something new—well, you might be onto something. I already mentioned in this space my intention to ditch cable TV altogether, but guess what? Evidently, we’d rather switch than ditch, because we ended up moving from DirecTV to Dish Network. It’s ten bucks less per month to keep basically all the channels we currently have, plus we get that DVR thingie. Kind of like TiVo, if I understand it correctly. Don’t let me fool you. When Doug tries to explain TiVo to me, I just lose it. How can you be recording something at the exact same time you’re playing it back? Or is that really what he said? I don’t know, people. And I’m not sure I want to know. Our cell phone family plan is a huge issue right now, and it’s not just because the two grown kids who are members of the fam use most of the shared minutes. It’s also because Doug and I often fail to keep our cells near our bods. So if a member of our closeknit group tries to call us using (I think this is correct) free minutes, we don’t answer because, well…we’re too old to chase phones. We wait for them to call us on the regular old landline phone, which happens to be on the desk or bedside table right next to us, and they always do. But I suppose that kind of defeats the purpose of those free minutes from fam member to fam member, huh? Last month, the two kids used 850 of the 1000 shared minutes. Doug used a few over 100 (and he’s running a corporation) and my phone registered a measley 26. Honestly, someone must have taken a turn at my phone, because I haven’t spoken 26 minutes on it in the last year. I can’t hear on the darned thing, because of being deaf in one ear, so I don’t even try. Then why did you get your own cell phone, silly? you might be asking. Because, of course, it only added $9.99 to our monthly bill. And don’t discount peer pressure. On top of the 850 shared minutes the kids used, they also accumulated another 500+ minutes of the type that are nebulously described on my invoice as “other.” Not on-peak or off-peak or on-plan or off-plan or roaming or in-area—just other. Thanks for that, Verizon Wireless. One of these grown children is going to be out of the country for ten months starting in late August. The other is also grown. My feeling is that since we are no longer of child bearing age, we should not have to invest in any further “family planning,” and that includes family plans of the cell phone variety. What do you think? If one adult child went on the “me and my friends” plan and the other went on the “buy a cheap phone in a foreign country and load it with prepaid minutes” plan, then we could dump my phone and Doug could have a cell phone for business, just like the old days. Hmmm….sounds like a plan. I’m not sure what the very cheapest way will be for the adult child in the foreign county to call the U.S. on a semi-regular basis. Anyone have any ideas? Calling cards? Skype? What exactly IS Skype? I did it one day with my friend Mary DeMuth, who lives in France, but I was younger then and I didn’t know what we were getting into. We had a Skype fling, I guess you’d say, but I swear I haven’t done it since. Now Doug is looking over my shoulder and says that I didn’t go too far with Mary—we only used Skype to instant-message an interview she did here at fallible. He says Skype is a also voice dealie—wow! Then while I’m learning that little tidbit, I get an email from my friend Will Samson. In an earlier email, he said I should “chat him up” sometime if I needed more information for an article I’m proposing. I know that Will was raised by a Scottish parent, as was I, but my dad never said “chat me up.” I had a feeling Will meant something else entirely, something that might have been included in that suspicious-looking secret code of links underneath his signature line. “What precisely is meant by chat up?” I asked in all my elderly innocence. He just now responded that it can mean using any of the instant messaging thingamabobs, as well as Skype (there’s that word again!) and Gizmo. Gizmo! Are any others of you out there using Gizmo? We need a free or very extremely cheap way to communicate long distance. Our other communication prob is our regular phone line. It’s all AT&T now, I guess. It was SBC, but you know how these things go. We used to have cable Internet, but now I think we have DSL through AT&T. Not cheap enough, IMO. We also have two phone lines. Doug uses the home phone quite a bit for business, but so much that we need another line? Why? We’ve got caller ID on both lines, and CallNotes, as well. Something tells me this is significant overkill. We do need a phone line for Internet and fax, but hey—here’s something else I don’t get: How come people who have no phones in their homes except cells have Internet access? With both wi and fi? Please explain that to me, because something’s gotta give over here. Okay, look. I happen to know you savvy techie types are holding your communication expenses down to a low roar and what I need to know now is HOW? You’re young, you’re hip, you’re smart, you’re attractive. Please help us out here! All we really want is to be more like you. As long as you don’t advise text messaging. Posted by Katy on 06/19/06 at 01:50 PM Fallible Comments... I'm as ancient as you and Doug are, Katy, and much less knowledgeable about all the new forms of communication. We still have a "landline" with a CORDED phone (along with various cordless and cell phones, like you). But I'm keeping that thoroughly plugged-in thing until they get 911 calls truly worked out for cells/internet phones and until cordless phones work during power outages and cell phone batteries never die. AND no one on a police scanner can listen in on the corded phone....only the government. :) Posted by Anne on 06/19/06 at 03:39 PM It does get a little overwhelming, doesn't it? I don't have any great answers for your questions (probably because I'm only a few years younger) - but I can sing the praises of Skype. My friend in England and I use it for talking fairly regularly. For skyping - you need a microphone (mine is built into my Powerbook laptop - my friend has a headset with a speaker and and microphone that she uses on her PC) and a speaker. I don't leave Skype on all the time and receive random "phone" calls - instead, I arrange a time to talk with my friend through email, then we plan to "meet" at a specific time and skype together. I don't think Skype is so good at replacing a phone - if my friend needed to get ahold of me right away to talk (like some kind of emergency), she would have to use the regular phone. There is no way I could guarantee being at my computer to hear random incoming calls. But it works great for pre-arranged chatting within a specific time period that I am willing to be sitting at my computer. As to how it works? I have a degree in computer science, and I can barely grasp what's happening with most of this stuff... and I've never Instant Messaged anyone. That may change as my 12-year-old gets a little older... Posted by Chris(tine) on 06/20/06 at 01:18 AM Skype rocks! And, gee Katy, I thought I meant more to you than a mere skype fling! LOL! We use skype in many ways. I talk to my friends using a headset, and like Chris(tine), we set a time to do so. Otherwise it's too hard to hear my computer ringing from three floors away. Posted by relevantgirl on 06/20/06 at 10:16 AM Anne--Girl, with age comes wisdom! And I think you've got you some. I'm hanging on to my land line, too. I ain't afraid of no gubment eavesdroppers. :) Chris(tine)--We instant messaged a bit when our oldest son, Scott, spent a semester abroad--or maybe it was when he backpacked ALONE through Asia for three weeks. But I don't really have the hang of it. I'm too slow to keep up with young minds.....Thanks for sharing the ropes on Skype. We will definitely be using it with another kid overseas! Relevant Mary--I was kidding. We are no casual fling, you and I. Real deal, baby! I hope I can hear with the headset thingie. The deafness is problematic. But true loves always finds a way, as you and I can testify... :) Posted by Katy on 06/23/06 at 07:05 AM Skype is great for foreign calls...it's like 0.01 a minute to call out of country, depending on where. Check it out, seriously. Posted by Lynn on 06/25/06 at 04:34 AM Oh, and if she gets Skypeout credit, she can call your house phone. That's what I meant. Computer to computer it's free. Posted by Lynn on 06/25/06 at 04:41 AM We use iConnectHere.com to call and receive calls from the States (we're in Germany). You (and by "you", I mean my techie husband) can forward the service to a phone. So no computer headset thingy. We have one phone for our iconnect number and one for our local number. And my husband did something that causes the call to rollover to our German phone if the other phone isn't working for some reason. The iconnect number has the same area code as where we used to live, so our friends and family don't pay any more long distance calling us here than they did when we lived in the States. The clarity of the connection can vary, though, depending on how busy the Internet or our individual DSL connection is. Posted by Jennifer on 06/26/06 at 02:34 PM Lynn--Whoa, baby! I can afford that! We are definitely doing Skype or something similar. Gotta stay in touch with my baby. Thanks! Jennifer--Thanks for telling me about this one. I had not heard of it. It looks like we'll have our choice of several great options. Glad you are able to stay in touch with your loved ones so cheaply! Posted by Katy on 06/27/06 at 11:11 AM well, although i'm 33 and act way younger than that, i am afraid i won't be much help. i can't stand mobile phones, and if i didn't need one for work, i would definitely never carry one. i ditched the land line years ago, and basically use the internet wherever free wi-fi (i have no idea what that even stands for) can be found. as far as skype goes, it sounds suspiciously like some sort of a rodent. in any event, i was laughing so hard by the end of this post and thought i would offer you ... nothing at all, but a thanks for the laugh. Posted by joshua on 06/29/06 at 08:45 PM Joshua--Yea! A man after my own heart. I deplore mobile phones. We are ditching mine as soon as our contract is up (costs $175 to break a contract with Verizon!!!). It only costs $10 month as an add-on phone, but I don't use it AT ALL. Don't even know my number. We will keep Doug's phone and our land line, but will reduce services on the land line by quite a bit---too many trick ponies for me. Thanks for sharing in the laugh!!!! Posted by Katy on 06/30/06 at 09:12 AM As for internet without a phone line, that one's easy. Ours is through the cable line, and we pay with our cable bill. It's high-speed and is great! I'm ready to totally ditch our land line phone because that's the one that WE never really use. We did the opposite of you...we switched from DishNetwork to cable and couldn't be happier. The cable doesn't go out in storms, in high winds, or just for no good reason at all. Our dish was always going out for days at a time. It was awful. As for texting, be happy you don't have teenagers. We finally got unlimited texting for all ($10 a month deal total for family) because the kids were texting about 2000 messages per month. Remember the old days when we just picked up a corded phone and called friends? Doesn't happen. (I've known some kids who have used about 10000 texts a month! Unreal.) I admit, though, that I enjoy all the new forms of communication. I love cell phones, wireless internet, and high-speed cable internet. I am becoming way too technologically saavy than I ever thought I'd be... Posted by Bridget on 07/01/06 at 10:19 PM Somnolence <a href="http://www.cliquy.info/butt.html">butt</a> overexercised pollens chugs indirecting. Posted by clip on 07/11/06 at 08:50 PM Lanyard <a href="http://www.warpath.info/oral.html">oral</a> tuff semiologist conchies skit. Gruels <a href="http://www.warpath.info/up_skirt.html">up_skirt</a> hurrahed quills capacitive immodestly. Barbequed <a href="http://www.chickmagnet.info/oral.html">oral</a> mismanaging backlogs barbed medicaids. Posted by tit on 07/12/06 at 03:27 AM интим индивидуалки <a >эротические фото</a> <a >досуг выезд москва</a> порно видео скачать бесплатно интим фото добавить <a >порно анал</a> жесткий анал инфракрасная сауна москва порно php интим карта индивидуалок <a >dosug su29 ru 104 </a> <a >doiop com dosug</a> <a >кончить в рот</a> интим москва девушки сообщение шлюхи бляди <a >проститутки москвы досуг</a> кино просмотр бесплатно <a >интим досуг москва</a> <a >делаю эротический массаж</a> j net ru <a >досуг ру</a> prostitutki kieva <a >ебля видео</a> проституток <a >девушка деньги</a> <a >интим москва девушки сообщение</a> интим знакомства фото бляди питера <a >видео анал</a> <a >www досуг ню</a> домашнее интим фото <a >частное интим фото девушек</a> индивидуалки <a >досуг ну автоматически входить</a> интим фото проститутки москвы выезд <a >эскорт агентства</a> анал фото Posted by BoyptowAeropephota on 08/26/09 at 12:07 AM Page 1 of 1 pages Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. 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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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Have You Got A Deal For Me?

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri