We bought our MagicJack at Best Buy for around $30
I want to first say that (unfortunately) MagicJack does not pay me a single penny for this review (although, I'm happy to take some extra cash if they are feeling generous! LOL!).
These days, we are all trying to figure out how to be more self-sufficient and yet live comfortably in this world. Naturally, everyone's definition of "comfortable" differs. I'm not quite yet interested in secluding myself completely from the world just yet (but being a realist, I do conceed that if the proverbial $#1t hits the fan, I'm prepared to do just that). So, we're trying to find a balance we can live with. We started looking at our budget to see what we could do without in order to live better on what (little) we make. We made some choices other people would cringe at, including giving up cable TV (why have cable when you can watch pretty much everything you could want to watch online??) and giving up our landline phone (we never had cell phones, other than the occassional pre-paid $10 phone).
p.s. Your children will not miss cable tv! After a short adjustment period, they will find they enjoy entertaining themselves in other, usually more creative and educationally-friendly ways. What an idea!
Before we took the plunge to give up the landline phone, we tested out MagicJack for about 3 months. There are definately pros and cons to the service. Let me try to summarize very quickly here:
Pros: It costs only $20/year for the service, hooks up to a regular phone and then to your computer, normally very clear sound, free long-distance calling, call waiting, voicemail, call forwarding, caller ID, and 3-way calling. Besides using it on your desktop computer at home, you can also plug it into your laptop and call from anywhere that you can get a wifi connection (using a headset instead of a phone), voicemail calls can be sent as an audio file to your email to check remotely (ie. from work), did I mention it is only $20/year??? The initial $30 covers the cost of the device itself as well as the first year of service.
Cons: Connectivity can be sluggish (I've had to try a number several times before the call will actually be placed), sometimes it drops calls (after about an hour of talking to the same person), the phone will not ring if your computer is turned off (but the call WILL go to voicemail for you). On my personal MagicJack, I also have an issue where numbers in a certain area of a rural town won't ring. I've talked to tech support, and they are "aware of the problem". What I did to deal with this problem, was sign up for skype. I simply put $10 in skype minutes on there (good for 3 months) so that I can call those certain land line numbers (2 of them are important numbers to our family). It's still an incredibly cheap service, even with our personal glitch!
Bottom Line: Personally, for $20/year, I am very willing to deal with those minor irritations (plus $10 for 3 months of skype pc-to-landline calling, but that's just to cover a glitch in my particular area). I used to pay $40 a MONTH for our landline phone!
*** MagicJack is saving us $484 a year (!!!) *** , and the service is reliable about 90% of the time to get a call through right away. I can certainly think of many places I'd much rather spend $484 a year than to throw it away to support the phone company! There, that's my MagicJack review :)
Income Update
As you all may recall, I watch a few children in my home each week for income. I also do some online surveys (which have slowed WAY down). I had put an intention out there into the Universe for a chance to teach an adult ed class 1 or 2 nights a week, and it has materialized! I'll teach a basic living skills class one night a week from November until June. The pay is...quite good. I will only physically teach for 2 hours, but will get paid for 3 (they will pay me for my lesson-planning time).
It feels sorta like manna from heaven at the moment. This will hopefully be a foot in the door in the adult education world for me. I just love the idea of flexibility that (I am hoping) teaching adult ed will afford me.
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Cheap Idea: Have I mentioned that cold weather is coming? It's time to think about cheap ways to keep warm! Most of our heat is lost through windows and doors (firstly) and then walls that touch the outdoors on their opposite side (secondly). Try garage sales or places like Goodwill for 2nd hand blankets and comforters for your windows. With a little sewing, you could cut a blanket and sew the edges to fit about 2 inches on all sides over 1 or 2 windows in the same room so that it looks planned and matching, or create a little throw pillow to go with the window blanket. Some windows (like on the north side of your house if you live in the northern hemisphere), may stay covered for the better part of the winter. Other windows (like on the south side) you'll likely only cover up at night, and then open on sunny days to help warm your home.
Just be sure to avoid things like bedbugs and lice by a) before ever bringing it into your home, put the blanket outside on a chilly night and then let it dry in the sun the following day. Then wash it thoroughly in the hottest water you have - even if that means boiling some to add to the wash water! (I break out the antibacterial soap to squirt into my wash for jobs like this. It's also worth a squirt or two of pet flea and tick shampoo into the wash. Kills 2 bugs with one stone, so to speak! LOL!) b) Then dry very, very well and air it out in the sun for another day before cutting it up and creating window blankets with. Stay warm this winter, my friends!
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