Thursday, November 08, 2007

Advice Forum Friday

Hey, y'all. Guess what - I'm having a Garage Sale! Oh My Goodness, I am going to be SO TIRED!

So my question for you this week is short and sweet. Do you still have a (telephone) land line in your house, and if so, what services are included?
And here's why I ask. I almost NEVER answer my home phone these days. Everyone I know has my cell phone number, and if I'm busy, I just don't even bother to check the home phone when it rings. And I also forget to check the answering machine, although when I do, it's just recordings and hang-ups. UGH.

I am oh, so tempted to just cut off our local phone service altogether, except for one thing: 9-1-1. I want my kids (okay, and me) to be able to call 9-1-1 if we need to, and if we aren't able to communicate our location, I want the dispatcher to know where the call is coming from. Which isn't the case with a cell phone. And that's the only reason I haven't dropped my phone service.

So what do y'all think? Lay it on me. And if you have a burning question to throw out this week, just post it on your blog, link back to this post, and sign the Mr. Linky down below.

I'll let ya know how the Garage Sale goes. Ack.




8 comments:

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

We have a land line, but we don't have cell phones.

You can get just a most basic line for around $15.00 a month. It's line with no extras (but do you need Caller ID and call waiting on a line you never use?)

By law, every telephone must offer a basic line only package. So I'd check into it!

Milehimama @ Mama Says said...

I did post a question on my blog today and posted it on your advice forum. It is about religion though so please delete it if you don't think it's appropriate!
:)

Jennifer said...

You know, I'd like more advice on this as well. I'm in the same position and seriously considering giving up the land line as long as I can still have my DSL. But I hadn't considered the fact of 911 service. I'm going to have to rethink that myself! Good question! I think I want to look into that basic line and see what I can find out.

Hope all goes well with the yard sale and you make lots of cash!! I was tired for a WEEK after mine! Hopefully that won't be the case for your!

Off to write a question on my blog! I'll be back shortly to link up.

Amy said...

The only reason we have a land line is because it makes the DSL cheaper (I still don't get this ...). We have a phone plugged into that line, but it's a cordless one and is rarely charged.

We have called 9-1-1 several times with our cell phones, though, and have never had a problem. They ask where you are calling from and transfer you to the appropriate community service. It only adds a couple of seconds to the call.

Anonymous said...

We disconnected our land line several years ago. I was to busy to go around and unplug all the phones and realized later on that there was still a dial tone (compliments of a toddler playing with the phone). 911 worked, but dialing regular numbers didn't. don't know if it was a fluke or what.

We did hook it back up this year though. I always left my cell downstairs charging and didn't think it was a great idea at bedtime to be upstairs without access to a phone - what if you heard someone breaking in?

WendyDarling said...

We did away with our land line 2 years ago. We now have 2 cell phones. One is the "home number", the other we use as a "travel phone", in case anyone leaves the house or goes out of town. They take that one. :-) We don't miss the land line at all. :-)

Anonymous said...

We went for most of our married life (the last 5 years) with just cell phones, but a few months ago, we dropped the cells for Comcast's digital package - phone, cable, internet for $99 a month. That's just a promo rate for the first year, but even once it goes up, it should still be less than we were paying for two cells AND internet/cable.

It's actually a smart idea to (if possible) always have a CORDED landline phone - cordless phones don't work if your electricity is out and you can't charge a cell either.

Tara said...

We have the basic phone, no extras, no long distance (we use the cell for LD). We pay 30 something for just this (we live in a rural area). I still have dial up internet, so that's why we haven't gone all cell yet!