Comments on: The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Yellow Edition

By: Paula Cufr

Paula Cufr — Sat, 23 May 2009 19:19:05 +0000

Landlines are a necessity if you have a small child and want someone to watch her/him (Grandma, for instance) who does not own a cell phone, and you take yours with you. NO phone for 911 emergencies or to get in touch with the parents. And if electricity is out for any length of time, a corded landline will still work. Cordless won’t, and you wouldn’t be able to charge the cell phone battery when your cell phone dies.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:38:20 +0000

Trent, your post made me smile. My daughter’s favorite color was yellow too (or, “Yeyyo!” as she said it back then). Her favorite number was “Nine!” I like to tell her about that every now and then (she’s 12 now). She thinks it’s funny too. They grow up too fast.

By: susan

susan — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:34:46 +0000

I use my landline for int’l long distance – $32.00 per month, 1 penny per minute to Australia. Also, have never run the battery down while I am away from a charger lol.

By: AnnJo

AnnJo — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:01:40 +0000

I spend anywhere from one to four hours in a work-day on the phone, and most of the time, I can easily tell the difference in the quality of sound when my callers are using cell phones. Even aside from the dropped calls, the added effort to hear clearly is annoying and tiring. Part of it, of course, is that cell phone users can more easily call from locations with lots of background noise, but another part is just what cell phones do.

Since I try not to inflict on others the stuff I hate myself, I use landlines at home and work and wish more people did.

By: dave

dave — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:25:26 +0000

I formerly worked for one of the major wireless providers, and in my experience either landline or wireless can be better. Trent is right that a few towers down will cut your cell service, and that can also happen for regular maintenance. However, in some disasters, cells are able to repair and get back on the air quicker than landlines. During Katrina the landlines were down hard, the central switching office was literally under water. So were some of the cell towers. The difference was that we rolled in several mobile cells, and had service back up in a few days, while landlines were out for much longer. You can’t bring in mobile land lines. So while your wireless service may go out faster, it’ll probably be back faster too.

By: Susan

Susan — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:01:36 +0000

I use a cell phone almost exclusively and we don’t have long distance on our home phone. But, we have small children so we’ve kept the landline for when we have a babysitter at the house. I don’t want to have to count on our sitters having a cell phone if we need to call them or they need to call us.

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 21 May 2009 16:43:37 +0000

I keep a land line because land line + DSL = cheaper than broadband.

By: Esther Ziol

Esther Ziol — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:59:00 +0000

Trent, I’ll just bet your daughter has a “sunny” personality!

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:30:48 +0000

My son is 16 months old and the first color he learned to say was yellow. I would have thought red or blue would have been a lot easier to say, but, nope, yellow. Maybe it is a reflection of his personality? He is cheery. By the way, now his favor word is “shoes”.

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:04:10 +0000

Regarding having a land line in case of emergency… this will only be valuable if you own a non-cordless phone. Your cordless phone won’t work in a power outage. I actually have an old rotary phone that came with our house. I almost tossed it, but then decided it would be good to have in a power outage.

Though we live in a highly populated area, I’m lucky if I get one bar of cellular reception at my home. So land line is still necessary.

By: Bargain babe

Bargain babe — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:01:56 +0000

Thanks for linking to me, Trent!

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:23:55 +0000

I do not have a landline. However, I live in downtown Chattanooga and my office is exactly one mile from my house. Coverage is not a problem here. My reception is great. Long-distance is included. I also live alone, so I don’t have to worry about kids or babysitters needing phone.

However, I did run into a problem this week. I am working from home this week, doing an online training course. We have to call a 1-800 number for the audio portion of the course.

It’s been ingrained into my head since birth that 1-800 calls are free. But when you think about it, from the cell provider’s prospective, airtime usage is airtime usage. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about it. Thank goodness I checked my usage after two days. Otherwise, I would have a $1000 overuse charge rather than a $250 overuse charge. This is what Dave Ramsey would call a “stupid tax.”

I set up a VoIP account for the last three days, and it appears to be working well. But right now, I really wish I had a landline to use for this course.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:23:45 +0000

Question: Can anyone recommend a cheap prepaid cell phone that lets you make international calls (and, preferably, also lets you make calls when you yourself are outside the US)? I had a Tracfone for a year, and I make so few phone calls that I could have used it as my only phone, but for the lack of international service.

I’m like Kevin and Sandy, in that I prefer not to be reachable by phone all the time, but if you have a cell phone, there’s no law that says you have to carry it with you everywhere and keep it on all the time.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:39:20 +0000

I’m with Kevin about having a cell phone. From my house, I can’t get service inside with my cell. I always have excellent service with my landline, and 0% dropped calls. I have a cell because of my job and the odd occasion that my daughter might call me if I’m out. I have a prepaid…costs $100 per year for those odd times, and I never give my cell number out as I don’t want to talk and drive like I see so many people do…veering over the side of the road, etc…Plus, like Kevin…I really don’t like being available to everyone 24/7…it feels like an invasion of my privacy somehow. If someone wants to talk to me, they can leave a message on my answering machine, and I’ll get back to them when I can.

By: Beverly D

Beverly D — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:11:12 +0000

I have to have a land line at home because I have a metal roof, which makes cell reception non-existent in my house. This is not uncommon in South Florida where I live. I am on night call frequently, so I forward my cell phone to my home land line in order to take calls. Otherwise I’d be out on the lanai all night, not a happy thing!

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:57:44 +0000

TracFone is very economical in terms of usage. If you stay within your minute usage it costs $80 p/YEAR. It’s $20 every quarter for time and minutes. That seems like a deal to me. Much more expensive if you do a lot of texting or like getting tweets to your device.

For that kind of money I can afford a cell phone and can set up tweets for certain events or special occasions.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:56:14 +0000

Not only do I still have a landline, it’s my ONLY phone. I don’t have a cell phone.

The landline is cheaper and more reliable than a cell phone. Plus, I have family several provinces away, so I make a lot of long distance calls that would really run up the bill if made on a cell phone.

I spend 90% of my day within 10 steps of either my landline at home, or my office phone at work. I’m not willing to double my phone bill, just to get “coverage” over that last 10% of my day. Truth be told, I LIKE being unreachable now and then. I actually pity those poor folks I see on the bus, constantly succumbing to the Pavolivian vibrations of their Blackberries.

By: DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad

DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:45:33 +0000

When she is near driving age, her favorite word will be “car” . . . a yellow one!

My daughter is three years away from that one.

By: imelda

imelda — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:57:21 +0000

Kids are weird. That’s really cute, though.

I don’t have a landline because it would be a complete waste of money for me. That said, I sympathize with anyone who does. Cell phones suck. Reception on any landline is infinitely clearer.

By: K. B.

K. B. — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:51:26 +0000

My reason for keeping a land line is easy – international long distance rates.

The cheapest cell phone package that lets me make calls to the US is $75/month – no texting or any other extras included included.

For $20/month, I get 24/7 unlimited North American LD with my land line.

Easy decision!