At some point, as a relationship grows and becomes more serious between two people, questions begin to arise about long-term plans, particularly as it begins to become clear that at least a significant portion of two lives are going to overlap and become one.

For my wife and I, these discussions started about a year before our wedding. We just talked casually about things, such as merging checking accounts and saving a lot in our supplemental retirement plans. We mused about kids a bit, with a general consensus of waiting for a least a year after our wedding.

Big mistake.

For most of the first few years of our marriage, our financial planning and organization was chaotic at best. We were often doing things in completely contradictory ways, like making separate grocery lists and both shopping on our way home from work, or refusing to budget or merge checking accounts because we both wanted control. We made the mistake of not talking these issues out and figuring out a way to make things work for us and, as a result, we created our own fallow earth where only seeds of financial disaster could take root.

Here’s what I wish I had done.

Figuring Out the Right Time to Talk
There is no simple rule to determine the exact moment to have that first financial heart to heart. The real key is figuring out when the time is right for you. Here are some indicators that you should schedule that talk sooner rather than later.

You’re personally holding off financial plans because of the other person. For example, are you thinking about buying a new car, but are waiting to see if the relationship progresses before making that choice? Are you thinking of moving to a new apartment? Maybe you’re even postponing an important decision about your career. This is a sign that on some level you’re thinking very seriously about the long term with this person, and that means it’s time to start talking about that long term.

You’re left feeling uncomfortable on a regular basis by the other person’s financial habits. Does your partner spend more than you like? Is he or she too much of a tightwad? Does that person not take the appropriate time and effort to manage the details, like making sure that overdrafts don’t happen? If these issues are cropping up and bothering you, it’s time for a talk.

Your spending and your partner’s spending are less coordinated than they should be. This is something that was a clear warning sign for my wife and I as we got closer. We’d both stop on our way home from work and buy milk, winding up with two gallons in the fridge (and one usually going bad before it was finished). We’d both buy stamps. We used to have to pay rent at an office and, more than once, we both went to that office and paid rent or the month. This is a sure sign that something’s out of whack and it’s time for both of you to get on the same financial page.

You’re about to be faced with a major financial issue or milestone. If your relationship is serious and you’re about to be met with a major crisis, like an impending pink slip, a huge financial settlement, or a job offer in a faraway place, now is the time to have a serious talk with your partner about your shared future.

You’re about to make a lifelong commitment to each other. If nothing else has triggered a money talk, an engagement ring should. If you’ve committed to marriage, one of the first things you should work out about your future lives together is how the money should work.

Do Some Prep Work
Don’t just sit down at a meal with your partner and say, “Let’s talk about money.” That’s not fair to either one of you, and you’re likely to come out of such a discussion at least as unclear as you were before. Here are some tips for making it work.

Do some reading first. If you’ve never read a David Bach book, Smart Couples Finish Rich is definitely a worthwhile read. Head down to your local library and check it out, then encourage your partner to give it a read, too.

Compile your own “financial balance sheet” and have your partner do the same. Get the balances on every account that you hold - both debts and savings - and make a list of all of them. Subtract your debts from the money you have to get an estimate of your net worth. This is a great way for you to get in touch with your real situation, and having the opportunity to show this to your partner - and have your partner do the same - will be a really valuable eye opener for both of you.

Schedule time. Plan for a couple hours (at least) for you to talk about things. Don’t do it impromptu - give yourself and your partner some time to get the needed information together and to spend some solitary time thinking about goals and desires.

Make a list of the stuff you want to cover. Both of you should do this, making separate lists. Think of every money question you have that concerns you and write it down, then use that list as an effective agenda. Your partner should do the same - just list out everything, then use it as part of the agenda for the talk.

Tips on the Talk Itself
Most of the general tips for a talk with one’s spouse also apply here:

1. Start off talking about goals.
2. Admit your own mistakes.
3. Look your spouse right in the eye, and hold their hand.
4. Be goal-oriented.
5. Look at numbers - but don’t judge.
6. Be fair. If/when your spouse admits to overspending, don’t blow up at them.
7. Create goals that you both agree on.
8. Create plans to reach those goals.
9. Agree to talk about it regularly.
10. Do something romantic afterwards.

Since this is really the first time you’re talking about money in a serious way, a few additional tips are in order.

Figure out who the “money leader” should be. In most relationships, one person is usually responsible for making sure the bills get paid on time and other such basic financial tasks. Figuring out which one of you will do that early on will save a lot of pain later.

Lay your complete financial situation on the table. Yes, even that credit card debt you haven’t mentioned to your partner yet. Everything. Soon, you’ll be in a situation where a windfall can lift you both and a debt can sink you both - be open about all of it.

If you don’t understand, ask. The key to a good relationship is good communication, and if you can’t ask questions about things you don’t understand, you’re revealing another potential problem. Don’t hesitate to ask a question if you’re seeing something that doesn’t add up.

Talk about the major financial obstacles that you see in the future. Where do you want to live? In what kind of domicile? Do you want children? Do you want to retire early? Do you want to work independently? What things do you envision for your future that will affect the life choices both you and your partner will have to make? Lay it all out there and just flesh it out - the conversation will lead itself.

Go through all of the questions you prepared in advance. Those questions will lead your discussion in healthy directions - follow where they lead you.

Don’t walk away with hurt feelings. There are a lot of ties between money and emotions, and you’re probably going to get your hackles raised more than a time or two during this talk. Afterwards, do something together that’s very separate from the topic as a way to heal. Just spend some good, quality time together and don’t let any hard feelings that came up during this talk fester into something worse. Work through them, and remember that you do love and care for this person even if you’re not on the same page yet when it comes to money.

My niece is fifteen years old. She’s a social girl with a kind heart and just enough social awkwardness, intellectual curiosity, and introspection that after spending five minutes with her, you can’t help walking away thinking that the world is potentially her oyster. Among school subjects, she’s most passionate about mathematics, but she tends to not advertise that fact because many people identify math as being highly “boring” and “nerdy.” If you haven’t figured it out, I adore the girl and I sincerely hope that when my daughter is fifteen, she’s as well rounded as my niece.

Given all that, I can tell from conversations with her that, to a degree, she’s lost right now. I am the only person in her extended family that went to college and got extensive exposure to a life outside of our hometown. She has that same mix of introspection and intelligence and parochial attitudes and thoughts that I see in my own writings from my high school years, and though I made a lot of good moves from there, I made some bad ones, too.

I’ve decided, then, to have a talk with her over the Christmas holiday. Rather than doing the typical “preachy” thing, I’m going to basically talk to her as though she’s an adult and preface it with the simple fact that I recognize that she will probably make it “out,” too, and let her know that I think the world is her oyster.

Here are the points I want to hit.

Listen to your heart above all else when deciding what to do. Your mind’s job is to mold your heart’s desire into something great, but without that desire and passion, nothing will happen. If she enjoys math as much as she seems to, she should give mathematics a try in college. I allowed myself to get talked out of that very major by people who were under the stern belief that I couldn’t “do” anything with it - and I’ve regretted it ever since. If you know what you’re passionate about, just follow that - your passion will make you great at it and your mind will figure out how to make a living with it.

Debt will become your prison if you let it. The only way you’ll live your dreams is by spending less than you earn from day one. Never, ever get trapped into “needing” some sort of consumer item - it will come to you eventually if you really want it and keep up with the “spend less than you earn” philosophy. What’s the big payoff? When you’re in your thirties, you’ll be riding high without a worry while everyone else on your block will be drowning. If you hate your job, you can quit - the rest of them will be trapped in place.

You will make mistakes - don’t make them into excuses. Everyone’s going to mess up a time or two - I know I sure have. The danger, though, is to use that mistake as a crutch or an excuse to not do your best. When you mess up, admit to yourself and anyone else you need to that in fact you did mess up, and figure out exactly what you can learn from it, then move on with life. You’ll do so much better at every avenue of life if you do things that way instead of passing the buck.

Be nice to everyone, even the people who seem “below” you. What goes around comes around, and thus the more kindness you share with others, the more it will come back to you. Reject any urge to belittle or be snarky towards others and find ways to compliment them and lift them up. If you take a moment to lift the spirit of someone and do it regularly, it will come back to you in some way that you likely cannot foresee.

The highest paying job is rarely the one you want. In my life, the higher the salary, the more stress and responsibility the job has brought to my life. Each person has a different sweet spot in there, but I’ve rarely seen a person whose best fit is the highest paying, highest stress job. Salary isn’t everything - don’t just go for the job that pays the most. This is even true right now, in high school - the most useful and valuable ways to spend your time are likely on a volunteer basis.

Will it matter right now? Probably not. What I hope for, more than anything, is that at some point afterwards, something I’ve said will click in her mind and she’ll make a better choice than I did, and that alone will have made our conversation worthwhile.

One thing that I feel I did very right earlier in my life was building a strong, communication-based relationship with my wife in the years before our marriage. We talked about everything, building up to a point where no topic was off limits between us and we could expect a truly honest answer from each other, and from that communication came a strong foundation of love and trust. It was perhaps the best thing either one of us have ever done, because it became the foundation of an incredibly strong marriage.

One of the most difficult topics to discuss was money issues, largely because of the taboo nature of it. In fact, it took us years to break down that final wall, even though we had found a very strong and deep comfort level when it came to other topics, and we both found that when we finally started communicating about money, it was incredibly valuable.

What did I learn from this experience? Without a doubt, it is far better to talk about money sooner rather than later when your relationship gets deeply serious. Here are some guidelines - and some specific topics to discuss - for when the time comes to talk about such things. You’ll be glad you did.

Before You Get Started…

First of all, realize that total honesty is the only answer here if you expect to have a long, lasting, and loving relationship. Once you finally get up the courage to address these issues, don’t hold anything back. If you find yourself biting your lip or tucking away a little piece of information or two, you’re creating a relationship of mistrust. I’m not talking about things like not telling your partner about their Christmas gift, either - it’s rather obvious where the line is in this case.

Expect some disagreement as well. You’re likely going to have very different feelings on how money should be handled in your relationship. If you find yourself being truly honest and meshing well, consider yourself lucky. Very lucky.

Don’t expect to answer these questions immediately, either. Often, fundamental financial decisions aren’t made in an afternoon. If something seems like it’s building to a serious disagreement and you’re not making any progress, let a few weeks pass before talking about it again. During that time, try hard to see the situation through your partner’s eyes and understand why they want things to be that way.

For some couples, these topics might be very easy and you might find that you’re both in very strong agreement. For others, each question might be grounds for conflict. Likely, you’ll find yourself somewhere in the middle, and that’s perfectly normal and healthy.

Twelve Things To Talk About

Where do you see us being in five years? Ten years? Twenty five years? Try to flesh out as much as you can here, but realize that the future isn’t set in stone. The reason for discussing this is so that you have some idea what the dreams and the goals look like for each other.

What does our complete financial state look like? Lay everything out. Every debt. Every drop of income. Everything. Don’t hide that $4,000 credit card statement, as you’re just building a foundation on top of a lie.

Should we share our money or maintain separate accounts? Who should be the primary caretaker of the accounts? Many people will argue that any married couple should combine all accounts - my wife and I did not come to that conclusion. Talk it out and figure out what’s right for you.

When do we intend to make major shared purchases, like a house? How much do we intend to spend on such a purchase (roughly)? This is one area where people often just assume that their partner sees things the same way that they do. It’s not true. My wife and I, for example, had very different views on when a house purchase was appropriate, and my wife was ready to buy three years before I was even willing to consider it.

Are children a possibility? Although this is a very deep emotional decision, it’s also a financial one as well. Make sure you’re on the same page when it comes to children, because while having a child is a deeply fulfilling endeavor, it’s also a very expensive one, often more expensive than people without children even realize. It also means some significant lifestyle changes, too.

Are we both committed to our career path? Sometimes, the support of a spouse provides a strong situation for one member of a marriage to make a career leap they would not have otherwise considered. This is a great discussion point.

Are we both saving for retirement? When’s the retirement target? This was one financial issue that my wife and I talked about quite a bit before we were married, especially since we both were already putting away a substantial amount into 401(k)/403(b)s. Just make sure that you’re both aware of what the other is doing and that you realize that without putting money away for that inevitable day, you likely will never retire.

Do we want an urban, suburban, or rural life? You might think the answer is self-evident, but it’s often not. Take Kathy’s story from a while back - she and her spouse at first thought urban living was self-evident, but after getting married, they began to talk about things and realized that perhaps it wasn’t the obvious answer that they thought it was and then began plotting a move to a much more rural setting. If they had talked things out first, they might have moved rural right off the bat, saving themselves substantial time, money, and happiness.

What’s our financial risk tolerance? Can we tolerate short term losses to aim for long term gains? For some, losing some money in the short run is completely fine if it means some years of 20% returns down the road. For others, watching the balance of their investments drop like a rock over years is just too painful. Figure out where you’re both at on this, so that if you make investments from your shared money, you don’t wind up with your money in something far too risky for the other person’s tastes - which can result in a very bitter conflict.

What’s the balance between work and leisure? Some couples might consist of two people that are very career-oriented. Other couples might consist of people who could care less about a career, or perhaps some mix of the two. The only problem comes about when one person’s expectations completely miss the behavior of the partner.

Is a prenupital agreement appropriate? Is one of you bringing far more into the marriage than the other, or expecting to earn far more than the other during the marriage? You may want to discuss a prenupital agreement, but there needs to be an air of honesty here - if you feel one is useful, don’t hold back in saying so.

Are there any known burdens that will likely crop up in the future? For example, does one of you have an ailing parent that may need special care? What about dependent pre-existing children? Do one of you have a major illness that may start showing symptoms? While these are not usually make or break issues, they often provide the basis for some deeply insightful conversations.

Two Books Worth Reading

I strongly encourage any couple that is considering spending their lives together to take the time and each read Your Money or Your Life (the book club of YMOYL might be very useful) and Smart Couples Finish Rich, but do it together. I recommend that each of you read a chapter, then discuss it together.

One technique my wife and I found useful was reading a chapter of such a book aloud on long car trips, with the passenger reading and then both partners discussing the topics. We would just stop and start talking whenever an important point came up, and we wound up discovering a lot about each other.

No matter what you do, though, don’t put off these conversations. They can be the key to establishing a strong foundation for your relationship and building a much stronger understanding of each other. In fact, if you’ve never opened such a door with your partner, today is the best day to do it, because tomorrow it’s very easy to find a reason to put this off.

A reader wrote to me recently with the following concerns about the financial health of her parents:

I’m still repairing my own finances (I’m out of debt but still working on retirement, I don’t yet own a home though I am 34)… but my parents have NO health insurance and NO retirement funds whatsoever. How does one prioritize such a thing? How would I prevent my parents’ continuing disaster of a life from undermining my own progress? How should I protect their meager assets (one house, no cars, no stocks, no bonds, no savings account, $10,00 cash) from the state before something befalls their health?

This is a situation where the raw financials of the situation rub strongly against cultural and personal values, and these values are going to be vastly different not only from culture to culture, but from family to family. Because of that, advice that would work for one specific family may create enormous problems if directly applied to other families.

Regardless of your family, there is a general framework of things that you can do to help everyone get on the same page that I discussed in detail earlier:

Don’t be angry. Quite often, parents will make statements and suggestions that provoke a sense of anger in the child, even if that’s not their intention. If you find yourself getting angry during this talk, look like you’re thinking, count to ten, and then ask yourself why exactly you got angry. Usually, it’s defensiveness, so ask yourself what you’re defending and why. In many cases, you’re defending a paper castle, something that you’d be better off revealing than hiding.

If their attitude makes you uncomfortable, ask questions. If they appear superior and condescending, ask them calmly if they’ve ever been in an awkward money situation before and how they dealt with it. Ask them how they would deal with your situation given that the past can’t be changed. Do it calmly and rationally above all, because anger is the one element that will cause this conversation to collapse.

Be completely open. If you are hiding things, you will only make things worse. Your life doesn’t have to be an open book, but if something is relevant to the topic, be open about it rather than hiding it. Not only will this answer more of your questions, it will encourage your parents to be more open as well.

Don’t be combative. Don’t enter into a financial conversation perceiving it to be a war, with ground gained and lost. Instead, look at it as a situation to personally improve yourself. The only way people win in conversation is if they gain a greater understanding of the issues discussed, not if they “win” or “lose.” Thus, quite often there’s nothing to argue or feel resentment about.

Ask lots of questions. The most valuable thing you can gain from a conversation is a resolution to the questions inside of you, so ask every question that comes to mind. Not only will you receive answers, giving others the chance to talk and say what’s on their mind will make them more calm and collected as well.

In addition, if you expect the talk to be difficult:

Figure out how you actually feel. Clearly, the reader above has some emotional ties to the situation that are quite messy. “Continuing disaster of a life” is a phrase that indicates some pretty strong negative feelings, and those feelings should be clarified. What do you feel is the right thing to do? If you’re harboring feelings contrary to your stated position, it’s going to be very hard to communicate well and communicate fairly with your family. If you believe something needs to change, have the courage to say so or don’t bother at all. That doesn’t mean you should be rude, merely that you should speak in a way that matches what you actually think is right.

Check your ego at the door. If you’re going to be honest, everyone needs to check their ego at the door. There is going to be some criticism in the air, and if people are adamantly holding onto their pride and their ego, not much will be accomplished.

State your expectations. The best first step to take is for everyone to state what they expect from everyone else. What do you expect from your parents? Financial independence? Planning? What do your parents expect from you? Financial support in their dotage? Likely, these expectations won’t match up and that’s the reason this conversation is happening at all.

In addition to our move, we’re about to switch cell phone services from a regional provider to Verizon, primarily because of signal availability in the area we’re moving to. We also happen to be not under a lengthy service plan, so we’re also looking to upgrade our phones as well since our old ones are on death’s door (we’ve been using them for several years and mine is literally on the verge of falling apart).

Here’s the process we intend to follow when switching to Verizon; it may be helpful for you in your own cellular plans.

Use your old bills as a basis for what you’ll do in the future. Looking at the last six months of our old bills, it became clear that we are paying for far too many minutes and so we’re looking for a lower-minute plan for our next purchase.

Do the research before you leave. Visit the websites of major providers and know what their plans are before you leave. You should especially know what sort of options you will want on your plan and which ones you don’t want, because salesman will often throw on services you don’t want if you don’t explicitly tell them that these are the only options you want. Also, have some idea of the phones available and what you want.

Know what you want before you walk in the door. For example, we just want a basic calling plan with only a relatively low number of text messages, because that’s what we use now, and also the ability to access a small amount of web data (limited data transfer, for Remember the Milk, for example). We also need new phones, but we don’t need high-end ones or Blackberries or anything like that.

Specify EXACTLY what you want and don’t want in your plan. Make it clear what you specifically want in your plan as soon as you begin talking, then tell them you’re going to browse the equipment for a bit. Why? This gives them a bit of time to think about their commission before you finish off the deal.

Don’t bother negotiating on the service plan. Plan prices are set by the national provider and local stores simply don’t have the option of negotiating with you, so don’t even waste their time. Instead, look for stuff you can ask for instead, like…

Ask for lots of other stuff. Ask for your activation fee to be waived. Ask for some free (or at least reduced) equipment. Since the salesmen typically don’t earn a commission on the equipment, they’re often happy to give a discount in order to seal the deal and get their commission from the plan. They’re going to be thinking “easy commission,” so take advantage of that mindset to get cheap phones.

This is almost exactly what we did when we first signed up for a cell phone service and we ended up getting no activation fee, all of our phones for free (they weren’t low end phones, either), and a few random items in the store for free, too. The guy behind the counter was about ready to explode with desire for getting his commission, so he was waiving everything and giving us all sorts of goodies just to get his commission on the plan we were purchasing.

My wife and I have a monthly financial review meeting where we sit down with all of our bills, credit card statements, and so forth. We go through everything together, item by item, and try to figure out where we can trim our spending. Most of the time, we’re in pretty clear agreement on things, but once in a while we disagree on the necessity of an item. What this entire discussion comes down to is a clear definition of our wants and our needs.

What are wants and needs? In a nutshell, needs are the things that you absolutely have to pay in order to live and avoid bankruptcy: housing payments, taxes, groceries, commuting costs, and so on. Wants are the things that you spend money on that you don’t explicitly need, like dining out or music.

As a rule of thumb, my wife and I allow each other a certain amount of wants in a given month, because life isn’t fun if you can’t have anything that you want. My wants are usually books, food, and occasionally music; hers are much more varied. By capping our wants at a reasonable level each month (and also with the peer review process on such spending), we often find ourselves saving quite a bit of money each month.

The tricky part is determining whether some of your spending is a have or a want. For example, let’s say we have beef burgundy for supper and in order to make it, we have to buy a new bottle of cooking wine (we generally buy pretty cheap wines for cooking wines, like “two buck Chuck”). It’s not explicitly a need, as you can prepare food at home without it, but it also really stretches the definition of want as well, as things like cooking wine enable us to prepare delicious meals at home that encourage us to eat at home instead of getting takeout or eating out, so in the long run buying a bottle of cooking wine is a money saver for us.

Here’s the process we go through to determine if something is a need or a want:

First, we list all of our spending that isn’t strictly essential in a month. Things that are essential are housing bills, most gas costs, staple foods, medical bills, insurance, and so on. These are things that we have to pay no matter what.

After we’ve made that list, we list everything that’s clearly a want. Entertainment and hobby expenses, dining out, and so on go under this category and immediately go on the want list.

This leaves us usually with a handful of things that we talk about - things like the cooking wine and so on. This process is more organic, but it usually comes down to the following question: would we have spent more money than this had we not purchased the item? With a bottle of inexpensive cooking wine, the answer is usually “yes,” because we likely would have eaten out more often without tools like that in the kitchen, thus costing us more in the long run. We use a similar philosophy to mark things such as CFLs as needs.

After this process, reviewing the list of wants helps us keep our eye on the financial ball each month. We usually strive to keep ourselves within our self-imposed allowance - and thankfully, we’re both usually way under the limit.

Marriage and finances can at times be a difficult mix. Each person has distinctly different experiences with money, and each person may have completely different philosophies on how that money should be spent. This often creates marital troubles, but these troubles usually boil down to a lack of communication at some point along the line.

In short, If you want a healthy and financially sound marriage, get over your hangups about talking about money. Don’t ever be afraid to sit down with your spouse and go over the nickels and dimes of your life. Make sure you define your goals together as a team, not separately. And make sure that you have compatible philosophies on discretionary spending - if your partner spends far more or far less than you’d like, it’s going to cause some discomfort and you need to clear the air.

Along these lines, a reader wrote to me recently with the following problem (edited a bit for grammar and clarity):

My future wife and I are generally on the same page when it comes to finances. We have the same long term goals and she is by no means a rich girl. But with that being said, when she sees a little extra in the joint account, she spends it… I don’t want to go behind her back to sock away a little cash but it may be the only way. Any ideas?

When you dig right down to it, this is an issue about communication. Even though you’re both generally on the same page about financial issues, there’s apparently a communication gap somewhere about what to do with extra money. Here are some potential solutions, some of which I like and others I don’t.

Forget about it. If it’s an insignificant amount, this might be the best avenue. Allow your partner the joy of having a little bit of spending money and just let things be. The only problem with this is if the spending seems to grow over time, which means that there’s a fundamental problem.

Take the money and put it somewhere else without saying a word. This solves the financial problem, but does nothing at all about the communication problem. Eventually, these withdrawals will come out, and it will cause a problem. Why? By doing this, you’re showing a lack of trust with your partner.

Have an open ended conversation about it. Here we have the opposite situation, as this solves the communication problem but merely hopes to solve the financial problem. The talk might help to alleviate some of the communication problems and really help to get your financial perspectives more in alignment, but there’s no guarantee of a solution.

Set an “allowance” for both of you. Another possibility is to set a spending “allowance” for both of you. Start off the conversation on the issue with this proposal. Although this does solve the problem if you both stick to it, when I first proposed this to my wife, it was met with heavy resentment and a sense that I was treating her like a child. If you try this, you need to be very careful.

If I were you, though, I would try this solution. Set up an automatic savings plan into an emergency fund, then don’t sweat the rest. If you’re finding yourself with regular “excess” that can be spent on trivial stuff and it’s making you uncomfortable, suggest sweeping some amount each week or month into an emergency fund automatically. Then, if there’s still some left over, don’t worry about it and just enjoy spending it. What will happen over time is that you’ll subtly adjust your own life to compensate for this extra savings.

Good luck!

I recently discovered a fantastic new feature in Google Maps that can actually save me a lot of money. Here’s how it works.

Let’s say hypothetically that I’m sitting at work in the greater Des Moines, Iowa area and I want to pick up a delicious pizza from Papa Murphy’s on my way home from work. Unfortunately, though, I can’t call out from work to non-business numbers, though I can receive phone calls. Ah-ha! I go to Google Maps, type in “Papa Murphys West Des Moines IA and see the following:

See the “call” link I have circled in red? If you click that link, you’ll be asked to enter your telephone number. As soon as you click submit, your telephone will ring. Pick it up, wait a few seconds, and you’re connected for free to the business. No charges to you at all, and no outgoing call charges. This is spectacularly useful if you have any sort of long distance charges or if you have outgoing call charges on your telephone, whether it be a land line or a cellular phone.

In general, this technique seems to work for most businesses - I have used it to call dozens of businesses in the last several months and I can only recall one that was not listed using this service. It has been very useful for making restaurant reservations, calling businesses to check on their hours, and so forth. It’s a great way to utilize whatever phone is handy to make calls without eating away at my cell phone minutes and without being dinged for outgoing call charges.

What’s the drawback? So far, I haven’t found a drawback - it’s not always useful, but quite often it can save me some cash.