My Phone Dilemma – part 2

Yesterday I posted about my first 2 phones, my cell phones, and how I am trying to convince myself to get rid of one of them.  Today I’m going to go over my third phone, the land line, and why, in this world full of cell phones, I am still stuck in the past…

Phone #3: my land line
So, what about this third phone of mine? The old fashioned land-line? I have had my land-line since I moved out of my parents’ house.  But, if I have had my personal cell phone since high school (so before I left my parents’ house), then why would I even bother with a land line in the first place? This is a good question…

When I moved out of my parents’ place, I bought a condo, moved in, and immediately got myself a kitten.  Even before I bought myself a proper bed, I have priorities, obviously!  Being a single girl with a cat, living on her own with a job that required me to be out of town (and out of cell range) quite often for extended periods of time, I wanted to have a phone number that could be checked and used by whatever cat-sitter I got.  I also think that my first condo had an old school buzzer system that didn’t work unless you had a land line… or something like that… it was a long time ago and I don’t remember.  Anyway, whatever the initial reason, I got phone service from Telus, and that was that.

When I moved to my townhouse, I took the phone service with me, and now that we’ve moved to our new house, I brought it with me again. It’s only $32/month, which doesn’t seem like much, but that adds up to $384/year, which could potentially be making interest in a savings or investment account.  Once again, I could probably do some sort of what if scenario on how much money that could mean for retirement or something… Anyone want to do the math for me and teach me in the process?

But I digress… What does all this have to do with a land line? Well, I use the land line for my cats… when my cats decide to wander, and follow other people home, or wander in to other people’s homes… and it happens… often… (perhaps I should write up a full post about the adventures of my cats…)  Anyway, both of my cats have collars with little tags on them with their name and the home phone number on it. When I am away, and I don’t have cell service, I know that if anything should happen to them, or if they get put in kitty-jail (yes, both of my cats have criminal-kitty-records), then the phone message will be received by my cat-sitter and they can be rescued, or whatever issue can be dealt with.

Now that I am no longer single and living on my own, it is not often that I go away for extended periods of time and have to get a cat-sitter (thanks to my fiance who has been extremely understanding of my weird job travel and stays home to feed the cats). So, I could go get new tags for my cats that don’t have the home phone on them, and instead have my fiance’s cell phone number on them, so that they can still be found when they wander away or get taken to kitty-jail for trespassing… The cost of that would be the cost of 4 kitty tags, so probably $40 or so.

Why 4, you ask?  Because we have 1 on each cat and 1 on each spare collar for when they lose their current collars.   I learned my lesson a while back… little kitty lost her collar, and while waiting for the new tag to be printed she just had a collar with no name or phone number.  Of course she got trapped and taken to kitty-jail.  Luckily kitty-jail posts photos of their inmates on their website, so when looking online for their phone number to call in search of the missing cat (she missed 2 meals in a row – unheard of in our household!) I saw her and was able to call and identify her and post bail and get her out.  The life of a mom of kitty-criminals…

Because it often comes down to the money saved, let’s do some more math.

My land line costs me $32/month.  And let’s assume that it takes me a bit to get my act together and I have to pay for January and February.

$32 x 2 + $40 (new cat tags) = $104

Versus the cost of having the land line all year:

$32 x 12 = $384

So I could potentially save $280 just this year.

Add that to the $750 that I would already be saving by getting rid of one of my cell phones, and we have $1030 of “extra” money that I can put in savings this year, and that would be up to $1500 in the following years without the initial costs of the transfer.

But I have mentioned before my aversion to change, and I always feel that a land line is extra safety for when the end of the world comes and all the cell phone towers are destroyed or whatever (I have an active imagination, or I watch too many apocalyptic movies), the land line with its old fashioned technology may be my last link…

Do you have a land line still?  If you have a cell phone, why do you keep the land line?  Would you consider getting rid of it?

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