by Isabelle Esteves

Created on: August 05, 2010   Last Updated: August 06, 2010

The first thing you need to decide if you want to save money on your telephone bill is do you really need to continue to have a land line? You no longer need to have a home phone in order to have DSL service. If like many people, you conduct all your business on your cell phone, it just might be time to get rid of the land line all together. That is probably the biggest savings that you can possibly get on your phone bills.

If you believe that you need to maintain a land line, it is worthwhile to check with your cable TV provider and see if you can create a bundle that includes you cable, your phone and your Internet access. These bundles can be quite a bargain.

There are other online phone services that can take the place of your land line. If you have Internet access, services like Skype can allow you to make long distance calls at a very low rate and if you are calling another Skype user, the calls are free. You can’t get any cheaper than that.

If you are happy with your land line provider but not with the price you are paying, look at what services you are paying for. If you have long distance service but only use your cell phone for long distance calls, then change or drop the long distance. If you are paying for services like call waiting or caller ID and they are not important to you, drop them as well. There are some very basic phone plans that you can have in place to really just allow people to call you and for you to make a limited number of local calls.

Check your cell phone bill closely as well. If you are paying high overage charges then it is time to upgrade your service. By the same token if you are not using anywhere near the number of minutes you are paying for then you need to downgrade your service. Be on the lookout for any promotional rates and also lookout for when some promotional rates that you had may have ended, there can be a dramatic increase in the amount you are paying. Texting is one area that is expensive and can get astronomical especially is you have teens, a family plan and you don’t have unlimited texting.

Be sure to check if your employer has a contracted deal with your cellphone provider. Many larger companies do and you can get an automatic 10% or more off of your bill. Call your cellphone provider and ask them about your employer.

Don't be afraid to negotiate with both your land line and cell phone provider. Give them a call and pleasantly ask them what promotions they are offering. You can feel free to hint that you are looking to change providers if you can't lower your bill. Ask for a supervisor or customer retention if you don't get anywhere with the first person you talk to.,

We all need to stay connected, what we don’t need is to overpay for that service. By taking a good look at what you are paying every month, you can find the areas where you can save some money.

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