Of No More Home Phone Bills. Kinda.

Everybody on tv is talking lately like cutting corners and saving money is something new.

Well, ol' Debra's been doing that for centuries. Or so it feels like.

Tom and I have never been what you might call financially well-to-do, perhaps not even what you'd call financially solvent, so I'm beyond-used-to thinking creatively of ways to make us appear and feel as though we have money in the bank.

Oh, there have been those weeks, here and there, when we had some extra dollars right before pouring them into some home repair/addition or something even more extravagant. Nice weeks, those.

But usually? Usually I'm slicing the cheese thinner and adding extra water to homemade soup and going out to eat only once a week (when we'd so love to go out more). And I'm turning off lights in people-less rooms and borrowing books from the library (when I'd much rather buy them) and downsizing all that can be downsized and trying so very hard to avoid late-payment charges and baking and cooking everything from scratch while attempting to use up all food in the cupboard so to space supermarket trips as f-a-r a-p-a-r-t as possible.

But this time Tom came up with a great money-saver, at least, we're crossing our fingers and praying we've not gotten ourselves into some pending phone disaster. Yesterday Tom signed us up with Magic Jack. Have you heard of him, er, that?

Now, for clarity's sake, you'll definitely want to check out that website, but here's the explanation in Debra Talk. Magic Jack is this phone jack thingy which you buy for around $40, then when it arrives, you plug it into your computer, then you plug your household phone into ol' Magic Jack. Then somehow you are walked through instructions (this part is hazy because Tom did it all) and eventually voila! You have a new phone number and your first year of service is free. Yes, if I can believe Tom (I'm still skeptical...) the first year of your phone service is free. No more phone bills arriving in your mailbox to complicate your life.

We can even call Canada free--again, according to Tom. For other international calls, you purchase a block of time...yada...yada... Check that out yourself.

After the first year? It's something like $2 per month. Wow. I do hope Tom was right about that part because that sounds pretty great. I can live with a $2 per month phone bill.

A tiny annoying thing? To call anyone, even your nextdoor neighbor, you must dial your area code first. Not great, but hey... doable. And you do have to leave your computer online all the time.... and if we lose power, well, we'll lose Jack. But Tom does have a cell phone provided from his job.

Before we signed up I asked Tom if he knew anyone in Real Life who has this service and he said, "Oh yes! Bud from work has it and loves it. He's had it for a whole month."

Hmm.... I was sorta hoping to hear from someone with a tad longer committment to good ol' Jack. Oh well.

Anyway, if this works, it will save us something like $600 a year. I like that. I'd like to use that $600 in a more creative way than giving it to the phone guys.

Again, here's the website: Magic Jack.

And in case you've tried Jack and found him nasty and mean, well, don't tell me of our impending phone calling doom, ok? Why? Because Tom's got it into his head that we're gonna stick with this and you know how that goes, right? There'll be no changing his mind until he changes it. And in the meantime, I simply wish to be left alone in blissful Magic Jack ignorance--and hope. :)