Do You still have a Landline at Home?by Sherry Holetzky | More from this Blogger 28 Aug 2007 08:21 AM If you still have a "real" phone or a landline, you're still like the majority of homeowners, but that may change before long. Many people are doing away with landlines to go wireless. Between cell phones and VOIP (voice over Internet phone) service, fewer consumers are utilizing traditional phone companies. In many cases, they are able to save a decent amount of money, since there are great packages some Internet and wireless phone companies offer. The plans tend be quite competitive with typical phone bills. In some areas, it's simpler to keep regular phone service, especially if your Internet Service Provider is tied to your phone company. Of course, there are other issues to consider as well. For one thing, cell phone batteries die and need to be recharged. Some people just buy extra batteries for their wireless phones and keep one battery charging while the other is in use. However, it's easy to forget or to otherwise end up with a battery that isn't charged. If your phone is dead and you need to make an emergency call, you might rethink having a landline. You'll also need more than one cell phone if you don't live alone. You'll need one to take with you when you leave the house and one to leave at home, so you can stay in communication with your family. This isn't a difficult issue, since there are many affordable plans that allow for more than one phone line per package. You will have to share minutes, but people can adjust and learn to make calls at more optimum times to save those "anytime minutes" for when they're really needed. As with most things, there are pros and there are cons. Landlines can be convenient but tend to be more expensive. Wireless phones are also convenient, and they do tend to be more economical, but they have their drawbacks as well. What do you think? Learn more about Sherry Holetzky  Sherry Holetzky is a work at home mom and freelance writer. Married to her best friend, Sherry and her husband are raising their family in a quiet rural setting in the beautiful Ozark Mountains. Relevanthome tags weight loss | holidays | baby | parenting | family | children | christmas | relationships | Kids | ideas User Comments SarahMomOfOneBabyBoy (45) 28 Aug 2007 02:46 PMMy husband and I (no kids yet at the time) went w/o a land line for almost 3 years... I would recommend keeping your land line. There are always those times when you have to call some company and wait on hold for what seems like forever, and wasting away cell phone minutes doing that really hurts! Plus, calls to 1-800- numbers aren't actually "free" if you're using up cell minutes. When I became pregnant with my first child, my mom went from calling twice a week to calling nearly daily. And, although I love talking to her regularly, I couldn't always talk because, although she was willing to pay the long distance to call me every time, I had to say, "Sorry, Mom, we don't have enough minutes for me to talk to you that much." And when the baby was born, she wanted to talk 2 or 3 times a day, which, needless to say, was just not do-able. Now that we have a land line (and unlimited long distance!), we can talk all we want. Also, we didn't get the best coverage at our house, so it was annoying that we could never have a conversation without some kind of cutting-out problems. The other problem is that using a cell phone all the time (unless you religiously use a hands-free device and keep the cell phone away from your body) is not good for you - most people have heard the research about cell phones possibly causing cancer. I still use a cell phone, but only as a secondary phone to the land line. I wouldn't ever go without a land line again unless something other than cell phones was involved. Sherry Holetzky (11404) 29 Aug 2007 07:08 AMThanks for sharing this information, Sarah. I have mobile to mobile so I can call and receive calls from other cell phone users, and most of my family and quite a few of my friends are on that plan. It helps avoid eating up all those minutes, so people should definitely look into that or free incoming calls if they hope to replace the landline with a cell phone. I should have mentioned that. You made some great points. Thanks again.  miraclebaby06 (17132) 29 Aug 2007 07:27 AMwe just have cell phones, we have a shared family plan with internet and 300 texts each. the cell phones are convinent as u dont have to sit around at home waiting on a call. we have no real need for a land line right now as mike works all the time and im running around with aiyana all day. i think once aiyana gets to around school age and has friends we will get a landline unless something would make us have to get 1 sooner miraclebaby06 (17132) 29 Aug 2007 07:27 AMwe just have cell phones, we have a shared family plan with internet and 300 texts each. the cell phones are convinent as u dont have to sit around at home waiting on a call. we have no real need for a land line right now as mike works all the time and im running around with aiyana all day. i think once aiyana gets to around school age and has friends we will get a landline unless something would make us have to get 1 sooner Sherry Holetzky (11404) 29 Aug 2007 07:35 AMA lot of people are going that route. Thanks for sharing. :o) Community Tags cell phones, landline, Long Distance, voip, wireless phone Discuss this article
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