telephone bill

Do most of you have Qwest as your telephone carrier? We always end up spending around $55 a month ....... I called to try and change our package deal to just basic with caller id/call waiting, and it's like they give you the run around! We pay $13.00 in taxes alone! $13.00! That is absolutely absurd.

Oh, and what they don't tell you is that when you use Directory Assistance (411), you get charged a fee like $1.25! I couldnt believe it when she said how much I was charged......... They sure as heck don't tell you that on the recording!

I can't believe how high taxes are on phone service!! Its like you pay 20% of your bill just on dumb taxes that go no where. We have Ameritech, but they are just as expensive as everybody else. I remember when directory assistance used to be 75 cents. Well, thats just another way for them to make money off people.

Spooky,
I looked at my phone bill on-line, & they charge $1.11 for each directory assistance call. I emailed one of the local news station ..... They do a consumer type of report every day.

I'm still on Bell, but it's Verizon now. I have long distance blocked without a code I chose, because someone was making unauthorized long distance calls. That's $4.00 a month. No call waiting or caller ID. I pay about $25 per month plus local pay calls. 10 10 220 helps with long distance--.99 per 20 minute call. Of course it's the same if you get an answering machine! I have to watch what I spend, so I'm careful not to make many toll calls. My big expense is the electric bill. The air conditioning keeps it high, but I need it because of my breathing problem.

Massachusetts local carrier is Verizon. Then you choose your long distance separately ( or you can use Verizon if you choose to do that ).

My basic bill is $49.95 per month, that includes unlimited calling in the eastern Mass area ( its 5 area codes I think ), caller ID, call waiting, 3 way calling, voicemail service, and a bunch of other bells and whistles that I don't use too often like call forwarding and call block.

I think its a very reasonable price, and once you add in the taxes and "fees", my bill is about $60 per month......but all of my calls are free. Since my parents and all the rest of my family lives in different area codes, but are still in MA, this saves me a lot. If I had to pay for each phone call ( which I did when we first hooked up our phone ) my bill was close to $100!!

We pay $159 for our electric bill. We are on a thing called the Managed Plan. It averages our summer bills out. Last year, our highest was close to $300, so last October, I chose the MP. Even though, we pay $159 for winter, it equals out in the summer time. Hubby turns the air down to 72 while he sleeps So that is why it is so high.

Telephone service has really gotten ridiculous. I just can't believe that it actually costs those companies $35 a month BASE just to have a phone hooked up in my home for local calls. I was forced to go back to Qwest because the new apartment complex doesn't have AT&T Broadband anywhere in the complex. Whoever did the order completely messed everything up, didn't put my name on it just hubby's, and since the long distance has always been through my name they want us to pay them $110 to have long distance service. So now I am trying to work with AT&T to get the right documentation that I have had long distance before so Qwest won't charge us the money to hook it up. It's a mess. Fortunately, both hubby and I have been lucky in getting decent customer service reps who actually knew what they were doing recently. Hopefully this will get cleared up soon, though.

Tigger, that is a really high electric bill!! holy schmoley!!!

My electric runs about $65 in the winter months, and it goes up to about $100 when I've got the AC on for July/August. AND I have electric stove, electric dryer so I guess mine is quite low in comparison!!

Wow!

Bill and I refuse to deal with Qwest. We have AT&T cellphones on the Family share plan. We get 500 anytime minutes, 1000 night and weekend minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile. On top of that, we got rebates so, the phones were free.

My Internet service is through the cable company so, we really didn't need to put in a landline.

Our electricity isn't too bad and the gas bill is negligible, this time of year. It'll go up, when we run the furnace, this winter.

Our water bill went up to $21.00, this month. Bill says that's too high and I'm cut down to two showers and one load of laundry per week . Maybe, I could get the cats to bathe me, their way.

Daniela,

I know....it's high! Do you think I enjoy paying $159? :LOL: If we weren't on it, it'd be double that amount, so I guess its ok (for now). Winter bills w/o the plan, would be right around $85 or so. I have to call them to see if I could discontinue the plan for the winter, and switch back right before summer. I dont think it's worth it to pay that much in the winter.