Have you done away with your land line yet? We have a land line that is mostly for the kids. I use it because it is more clear than my cell at times and conveniently located beside my workstation with a nice headset. We are horrible about checking it for voicemail. There are actually two lines. One is the primarily line and the other is a line dedicated to the children and a fax machine. We mostly use the fax machine for making copies. This setup runs me roughly $80 per month (which is nearly $1000 per year!). The primary reason for keeping it is that I’ve had the main number for over a decade. Even people that haven’t been in touch with me in years can call me. By the same rationale I used to hang onto a post office box that took me nearly a half an hour drive in one direction to get the junk mail out of it. In the same vein, the primary caller to the land line is the ever present bill collector.
Yes, sometimes I have a hard time letting go. Today unless I miraculously pull $200 out of my hind quarters, that piece of nostalgia goes away forever. At least I have the convenient excuse of telling people "we only use our cell phones" instead of "my cash flow is so screwed up that I can’t hang onto basic utilities."
As I write this, I become increasingly comfortable with the idea of simply arming each family member with their own cell phone (3/7s the way there already) and never again using Hellsouth (aside from their relationship to Cingular).
Watch for this weekend’s followup installment: Learning how to live without electricity!
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