Simple Living

Why are you paying a fee when you can talk for free?

If you’re anything like me (and even if you’re not), your damn home phone rings too much anyway, and when it does, it’s someone wanting money. You come to hate that pesky voicemail and those people wanting to talk to you about “an urgent matter” who want you to call them back and give them a case number so that they can tell you how much money you owe them, once they check that your contact information is correct, and that you need to pay it now. I think it may be time to get rid of your telephone line…

If you have high speed internet (DSL or better, and by better I mean Cable, T1, et al, for our technologically challenged friends. Yes I know, I’m supposed to be cheap, why in the world would I overpay for Comcasts’ internet if I’m so cheap, well shit, it’s the same reason I own an iPhone, I don’t skimp on the important stuff), you have access to an internet telephone line that you can prepay to set up and enjoy forever.

1. Get yourself a VOIP Cheap account. Now, the way it works is, you get free calls for 90 days with 10 Euros to all of their free destinations (which when I bought it worked out to be about $14). You prepay the fee and enjoy the calls until the three free months run out and then you are charged (about $.02 a min in the U.S.) whatever the normal fee is for outgoing calls. Incoming calls are still free however and now comes the good part: A free phone number for those incoming calls.

2. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 if you BUY service to RECEIVE calls…Not necessary, as long as you don’t care about the area code of your phone number. IP KALL will give you a free Washington State phone number. Get yourself an account and a number (yes, right now). Now your setup once you login should look like this:

Account type: SIP
SIP Phone Number: (your VOIP CHEAP username)
SIP Proxy: sip.voipcheap.com
Email Address: (your email address you used to sign up with IP KALL)
Password: (your IP KALL password)
Seconds to Ring before Hang Up: (whatever you want it to be or the default will be filled in)

That’s it!

Tell all of your friends your new phone number and voila, a free phone number forever (as long as you don’t let it go inactive for 60 days b/c then you’ll lose the number)! Next: How to make money by getting phone calls.

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