One of the things you can do to save money is to get rid of one of your telephones. The question is, which one? Land line or cell phone?

Since I’m home pretty much all the time, I do think about this a lot. I barely use my cell phone, but oh, is it nice to have at times! Haven’t had to use it for an emergency or anything yet, but having it available for that kind of a situation makes a lot of sense.

But I don’t think a cell phone makes sense for every family. Or perhaps I should rephrase that. I don’t think having both a cell phone and a land line makes sense for every family.

In my case it does. The cell phone itself is a gift from my inlaws and costs me nothing. Getting rid of it does not benefit me in any way. However, we do not get good enough reception in our house to justify getting rid of the land line. I’d miss too many calls. This is coming from someone who probably averages less than one call made or received daily. I’m not a big talker.

But for other stay at home moms it doesn’t make sense to spend money on both a cell and a land line telephone. Why pay for two when one will do the job well enough?

I’ve noticed that these days most people recommend you get rid of the land line. This makes some sense, especially since cell phone contracts can be expensive to get out of. You can’t always just wait it out. Also, many contracts make it cheaper per line to have multiple phones. You might not be saving that much money by getting rid of one cell phone and keeping another.

There are disadvantages to having only a cell phone. You are subject to the whims of cell phone reception. You have to remember to keep it charged. If you dial 911 it may not be routed the same way a call from a land line telephone would be, which can impact response time.

Getting rid of excess telephone service is one of the easiest ways to save money. The challenge is deciding which service is most worth cancelling. You need to look at what you would save and which phone is most worth the money to you.

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