The poison control centers are a GREAT resource if you have questions regarding accidental ingestion. However, their funding may be in danger. The phone number will remain, but there will be no one to answer it. Go to http://www.aapcc.org to learn more and to contact your congressmen!
Thank you for addressing a frequently asked question. People with 401ks constantly run into this allocation decision and don't know what to do. You have laid it out perfectly. The higher fees alone could be reason enough to choose a Roth IRA over 401k contributions (after company match). Increased fees over many years are one of the great killers of performance and hurt investors returns far more than most realize.
Thanks for the great article.
Ken Faulkenberry
We still have one, but I don't think we will for long. It is actually cheaper to get my 10 yr old her own cell line than it is to keep the land line. We have a ton of old cell phones, so she can just reuse them and if she loses one - no biggie. Plus, we have free long distance on our cell service -- not so on the landline!
Easy solution to this whole epidemic:
(1) If you default with a standard bank loan, standard penalties apply
(2) If your loan is federally backed (fannie or freddie), then add a prison sentence for defaulting. People would stop defaulting and house prices would stabalize across the country.
I cancelled my landline way before it was cool. It happened back in the early 2000’s on the day I had to leave the room to take a call on my cell because my significant other and our two teenage boys were on their cell phones as well. I realized that four cell phones plus a landline was overkill. I remember people inquiring on why my phone was ‘shut off’ and explaining that I did it on purpose. (But felt the “SURE you did….” vibe.) Years later I bought my current home and didn’t get a landline then either, as AT&T provides DSL service without one.
I’ve had several occasions to call 911(don’t ask) and have never had an issue reaching them nor relaying the correct location information. Just like I wouldn’t need a landline to call 911 from an accident on the highway, I find that argument silly.
Sometimes I miss the old style phones. Heavy in your hand, the occasional rotary dial with a real bell sound that pierced the air. I know there are kids that will grow up and won’t know what a dial tone sounds like or know how you couldn’t mute or reject incoming calls. If you had a stalker, you had to suffer the repeated intrusions with the only option being unplugging the phone! Oh, and angrily pushing the end call button during a heated debate will never hold a candle to the sound slamming an old style phone in to its cradle! It just doesn’t leave that screw you impression like the old phones could.
The nostalgia of the old style landline phones is what I miss. Certainly not the monthly bill with ridiculous taxes and miscellaneous charges! But I guess the same premise can be applied to mailing letters or writing checks, both of which are a thing of the past in my world.
Time marches on. R.I.P. landline, your time in my life has ended.
Yes we still have a landline because people can find us in the phone book. If they would publish a phonebook of cell phone numbers, the landline would go in a minute!
There is no reason to have a traditional land-line these days. I use a cheap prepaid service ( Page Plus) when I am out, and a Magic Jack serves as my land-line. I work from home and my $20 a year MJ service is reliable and affordable...plus I can send faxes through it. I can even use it with my laptop...VERY handy for business trips and vacations. I can take my "home phone" with me.
Google has a "voice" service that looks like a free alternative to MJ..I have not tried it, but it looks good. I may start using it as a second line.
Personally, I see no reason to have a real land-line ever again.
My husband and I have cell phones, but we also have a house phone. But we've been using Vonage for over a year now for our house phone. Not sure if it counts as land-line since it's VoIP.
I haven't had one since 2001. Like other commenters, I have moved often; the hassle of changing numbers, contracts, and billing accounts would have grown very old. I have a second Google Voice account to give out to companies, services, and websites that need a number, and I can retrieve that voicemail anytime. I use a Web-based fax service. As far as I can tell, the only thing a landline ever got me that I'm not getting now is a load of additional expense. The various tax charges alone on my landline bills were ridiculous enough...to say nothing for the atrocious rates for calls. My mobile phone suits my lifestyle, and various other web services provide other, richer outlets for any of the other uses formerly filled by landlines.
We have a land line and I don't intend to get rid of it. I worked with a major phone company and saw that during emergencies and major disasters that cell phone priority is given to emergency workers. Rather than compete with this necessary work, we could just use the traditional copper wire based land line to contact family and friends, Plus the copper based land line is self sustaining, unless the line is cut, so I don't have to worry about charging the phone.
Yes, landline phone as I don't have a cell phone & I use dial-up internet. I would probably still be on rotary service if I hadn't been required to go touch tone service because of mandatory 911 requirements in my area.
Stamford, CT might be "safe" from natural disasters, but it is within the 20 mile blast radius for a nuclear reactor that is considered to be the most at risk for failure in the US by the NRC. The winds from the 2 reactors in Buchanan, NY 15 miles away would blow right over Stamford. If you consider the uranium and plutonium at the power station a naturally occurring chemically element, it wouldn't fit the criteria of being safe from a natural disaster. If you consider a nuclear meltdown, a manmade disaster then it surely fits. I wonder how many of the other safest cities are located near nuclear power plants?
Funny, I just rid myself of my land line. I have had a very successful home based sewing shop for over 20 years. My home phone # was also my shop number. I rely heavily on caller ID and call forwarding to run my business. Two years ago my bill was 26.00 a month with a one line advertising in the yellow pages for 9.00 additional dollars a month. Last year the line went to 49.00 a month they would now charge 10.00 for caller ID and 10.00 for call forwarding. Also a new bill would be generated monthly with a 19.00 charge per-line in the yellow pages. So now I have a separate bill of 38.00 plus tax for advertising every month and a 49.00 telephone bill. Well with new taxes and this and that last month the bill went to 96.00. I called voiced my disapproval. The salesman told me so many people were going to cell phones that they had to make money some where. Well the some where is no longer me. I said I would never, never give up my land line but I am tired of being taken advantage of, so here I sit with my cell phone and my old number ported in. I actually love it. No more answering machine. My phone goes with me, I get all my messages. It is great and even better. I am saving 96.00 a month.
We visited St. Paul / Minneapolis in September about 5 years ago. After a day of sightseeing we noticed a very ominous, dark storm-front approaching from the west, so we headed east on Rte.36. Pretty soon tornado sightings and warnings were being broadcast. We didn't encounter the tornado, because it stayed a bit north of our route, but it did do some damage. Come to think of it, there was a bridge collapse in the twin cities about a year later .
I've got a landline so that I can send faxes! Yes, people actually do still fax... The only reason I do is because I am a medical insurance examiner on the side. Pretty good hustle, but it does require a phone line to fax on...
I do still have a landline because I don't pay for cable TV and this is the cheapest way for me to get high-speed internet. The last two times I've tried to call and cancel the landline, AT&T has told me I can keep the phone service and DSL for a lower price than I could get only DSL. Stupid, right?
Rachel,
Do you have to use the 150 minutes for that month? Do you have to pay 15 dollars every month? Do they carry over to the next month? How does it work? I have a plan where I pay 10.00 whenever I run out of minutes. I want to say I have 90 days to use them. So if I don't use my phone a great deal, I could only pay 10.00 for a 3 months span. I just have to find out how many minutes I get. I like it bacause, if I need to find wiggle room in my budget, then I won't use my phone as often.
The poison control centers are a GREAT resource if you have questions regarding accidental ingestion. However, their funding may be in danger. The phone number will remain, but there will be no one to answer it. Go to http://www.aapcc.org to learn more and to contact your congressmen!
Thank you for addressing a frequently asked question. People with 401ks constantly run into this allocation decision and don't know what to do. You have laid it out perfectly. The higher fees alone could be reason enough to choose a Roth IRA over 401k contributions (after company match). Increased fees over many years are one of the great killers of performance and hurt investors returns far more than most realize.
Thanks for the great article.
Ken Faulkenberry
"The Starbucks treatment" vs "Tips are worth it"
These seem almost mutually exclusive?
We still have one, but I don't think we will for long. It is actually cheaper to get my 10 yr old her own cell line than it is to keep the land line. We have a ton of old cell phones, so she can just reuse them and if she loses one - no biggie. Plus, we have free long distance on our cell service -- not so on the landline!
Easy solution to this whole epidemic:
(1) If you default with a standard bank loan, standard penalties apply
(2) If your loan is federally backed (fannie or freddie), then add a prison sentence for defaulting. People would stop defaulting and house prices would stabalize across the country.
I cancelled my landline way before it was cool. It happened back in the early 2000’s on the day I had to leave the room to take a call on my cell because my significant other and our two teenage boys were on their cell phones as well. I realized that four cell phones plus a landline was overkill. I remember people inquiring on why my phone was ‘shut off’ and explaining that I did it on purpose. (But felt the “SURE you did….” vibe.) Years later I bought my current home and didn’t get a landline then either, as AT&T provides DSL service without one.
I’ve had several occasions to call 911(don’t ask) and have never had an issue reaching them nor relaying the correct location information. Just like I wouldn’t need a landline to call 911 from an accident on the highway, I find that argument silly.
Sometimes I miss the old style phones. Heavy in your hand, the occasional rotary dial with a real bell sound that pierced the air. I know there are kids that will grow up and won’t know what a dial tone sounds like or know how you couldn’t mute or reject incoming calls. If you had a stalker, you had to suffer the repeated intrusions with the only option being unplugging the phone! Oh, and angrily pushing the end call button during a heated debate will never hold a candle to the sound slamming an old style phone in to its cradle! It just doesn’t leave that screw you impression like the old phones could.
The nostalgia of the old style landline phones is what I miss. Certainly not the monthly bill with ridiculous taxes and miscellaneous charges! But I guess the same premise can be applied to mailing letters or writing checks, both of which are a thing of the past in my world.
Time marches on. R.I.P. landline, your time in my life has ended.
Yes we still have a landline because people can find us in the phone book. If they would publish a phonebook of cell phone numbers, the landline would go in a minute!
There is no reason to have a traditional land-line these days. I use a cheap prepaid service ( Page Plus) when I am out, and a Magic Jack serves as my land-line. I work from home and my $20 a year MJ service is reliable and affordable...plus I can send faxes through it. I can even use it with my laptop...VERY handy for business trips and vacations. I can take my "home phone" with me.
Google has a "voice" service that looks like a free alternative to MJ..I have not tried it, but it looks good. I may start using it as a second line.
Personally, I see no reason to have a real land-line ever again.
No landline for me. I truthfully don't know anyone under the age of 30 that still has one!
My husband and I have cell phones, but we also have a house phone. But we've been using Vonage for over a year now for our house phone. Not sure if it counts as land-line since it's VoIP.
I haven't had one since 2001. Like other commenters, I have moved often; the hassle of changing numbers, contracts, and billing accounts would have grown very old. I have a second Google Voice account to give out to companies, services, and websites that need a number, and I can retrieve that voicemail anytime. I use a Web-based fax service. As far as I can tell, the only thing a landline ever got me that I'm not getting now is a load of additional expense. The various tax charges alone on my landline bills were ridiculous enough...to say nothing for the atrocious rates for calls. My mobile phone suits my lifestyle, and various other web services provide other, richer outlets for any of the other uses formerly filled by landlines.
I have a landline, pre-paid long distance phone card, and prepaid cell phone all for about $45 per month.
We have a land line and I don't intend to get rid of it. I worked with a major phone company and saw that during emergencies and major disasters that cell phone priority is given to emergency workers. Rather than compete with this necessary work, we could just use the traditional copper wire based land line to contact family and friends, Plus the copper based land line is self sustaining, unless the line is cut, so I don't have to worry about charging the phone.
Yes, landline phone as I don't have a cell phone & I use dial-up internet. I would probably still be on rotary service if I hadn't been required to go touch tone service because of mandatory 911 requirements in my area.
Stamford, CT might be "safe" from natural disasters, but it is within the 20 mile blast radius for a nuclear reactor that is considered to be the most at risk for failure in the US by the NRC. The winds from the 2 reactors in Buchanan, NY 15 miles away would blow right over Stamford. If you consider the uranium and plutonium at the power station a naturally occurring chemically element, it wouldn't fit the criteria of being safe from a natural disaster. If you consider a nuclear meltdown, a manmade disaster then it surely fits. I wonder how many of the other safest cities are located near nuclear power plants?
Funny, I just rid myself of my land line. I have had a very successful home based sewing shop for over 20 years. My home phone # was also my shop number. I rely heavily on caller ID and call forwarding to run my business. Two years ago my bill was 26.00 a month with a one line advertising in the yellow pages for 9.00 additional dollars a month. Last year the line went to 49.00 a month they would now charge 10.00 for caller ID and 10.00 for call forwarding. Also a new bill would be generated monthly with a 19.00 charge per-line in the yellow pages. So now I have a separate bill of 38.00 plus tax for advertising every month and a 49.00 telephone bill. Well with new taxes and this and that last month the bill went to 96.00. I called voiced my disapproval. The salesman told me so many people were going to cell phones that they had to make money some where. Well the some where is no longer me. I said I would never, never give up my land line but I am tired of being taken advantage of, so here I sit with my cell phone and my old number ported in. I actually love it. No more answering machine. My phone goes with me, I get all my messages. It is great and even better. I am saving 96.00 a month.
We still have land line and will continue to do so until our cell service improves. I wish it weren't so.
No landline for several years now -- it's just another expense -- and, once we got rid of it, we no longer got calls from telemarketers!
We visited St. Paul / Minneapolis in September about 5 years ago. After a day of sightseeing we noticed a very ominous, dark storm-front approaching from the west, so we headed east on Rte.36. Pretty soon tornado sightings and warnings were being broadcast. We didn't encounter the tornado, because it stayed a bit north of our route, but it did do some damage. Come to think of it, there was a bridge collapse in the twin cities about a year later .
You must have missed the "Ensure you have a designated driver" line.
I've got a landline so that I can send faxes! Yes, people actually do still fax... The only reason I do is because I am a medical insurance examiner on the side. Pretty good hustle, but it does require a phone line to fax on...
No. Only cell phone for the past 7 years.
I do still have a landline because I don't pay for cable TV and this is the cheapest way for me to get high-speed internet. The last two times I've tried to call and cancel the landline, AT&T has told me I can keep the phone service and DSL for a lower price than I could get only DSL. Stupid, right?
Rachel,
Do you have to use the 150 minutes for that month? Do you have to pay 15 dollars every month? Do they carry over to the next month? How does it work? I have a plan where I pay 10.00 whenever I run out of minutes. I want to say I have 90 days to use them. So if I don't use my phone a great deal, I could only pay 10.00 for a 3 months span. I just have to find out how many minutes I get. I like it bacause, if I need to find wiggle room in my budget, then I won't use my phone as often.
Great post -- I'm definitely a fan of buying almost anything used.