Financial Survival Thread

[Jasher]

Are you retired, unemployed, single parent, or just plain struggling to keep up with our inflation rate, which is really between 12 and 15 percent - don't believe the government's lowball "statistics." For anyone struggling to put meals on the table for your family there is Christian help. Check to see if their service is available in your area. Type in your zip code to see. Also see video promo.

Angel Food

[Boanerges]

That is nice Larry I will pass it on!

[Jasher]

Originally Posted by Boanerges

That is nice Larry I will pass it on!

I've volunteered a few times in my younger days to put these food package together - it is a lot of work - at least the way we did it. But the two Churches I was involved with gave the food away free. Later the more recent one (Vineyard) wised up and started making repeat recipients do some of the labor - they had to work 6 hours in the ministry to get their food package. There were many stories of abuse of these kinds of service going around. This one is great because you have to pay roughly half of the cost of the food - which is a big help to those who are struggling. This helps the abuse problem I would think. Some poor people you just can't help. They are poor because they just don't want to work - and if they have children you are stuck with the problem after the fact. What do you do?

Anyway, this showing of kindness is really inspiring.

Larry #2

[Jasher]

If you want to learn how to live on a shoestring - ask a retired person or single parent. Retirement in my case saw about a sixty precent drop in income. So some things just have to change.

Today I received my new Magic Jack dongle. This is a new internet phone service, which has unlimited calling in the USA and Canada. The cost of this USB unit is $40.00 plus about $7.00 shipping and handling. The first year is "Free" and the second year is just $20.00. I am cancelling my Vonage Service, which runs about $30 per month. Savings is about $313 per year.

You just plug the dongle into a USB port on your computer and plug a standard telephone into the dongle. Once the software loads and you register - the service begins. It seems to work just as well as Vonage - but I'll reserve judgment on this for awhile. It also has 911 service and voicemail. If you send the unit overseas the user will be able to call the USA and Canada just like in this country. The only downside is that your computer has to be on to use Magic Jack whereas Vonage feeds off of the router and does not go through the computer - so it is always on. And of course you have to have high speed internet to use either.

Is this a good deal? Has anyone had experience with it? Please advise.

Larry II

Magic Jack

[Dusty]

Hey Larry II.... My zip code didn't work..... only in USA they say....LOL

Anyways .... I have unlimited calling any time, any day, and I pay $ 25. per,month so that is not bad. They calculate all my monthly calls and last month the bill came to $911 so they aren't making anything on me.

I don't have high speed and I don't leave my computer on all the time so that would not work for me and my computer is in the basement so would not hear the calls.

[Jasher]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Hey Larry II.... My zip code didn't work..... only in USA they say....LOL

Anyways .... I have unlimited calling any time, any day, and I pay $ 25. per,month so that is not bad. They calculate all my monthly calls and last month the bill came to $911 so they aren't making anything on me.

I don't have high speed and I don't leave my computer on all the time so that would not work for me and my computer is in the basement so would not hear the calls.

I didn't know it was limited to the USA - you can call Canada, so I assumed you could use it there also. They say you can take the unit to Europe and use it to call US and Canada from there. So I assume that if I took our unit to Canada it would work there as well. I just dumped cable TV and Vonage which will save me $840 per year.

I find that I sometimes pay for the Cadillac and drive a Yugo - A few years back we had two phone lines and a dial up connection as well. I dropped one phone line, cancelled my dial up service, and added high speed internet service and still saved a bit of money to boot. Technology is always changing and DSL prices are dropping - you may want to compare local low end DSL to dial up.

Larry II

[oogii]

LOL you guys are lucky here we pay close to 100$ for 3gigs of Internet usage our Internet and telephone lines are run by the same company, there's no competition... The prices here are crazy... I don't have the Internet at home maybe one day it'll be cheaper

[Jasher]

Wow - I would never have guessed that a city as large as Johannesburg with a metro population of about 8 million would not be competitive in the internet market. I guess I usually think of SA as the same social and economic climate as England. Kind of sounds like the USA back in the days when AT&T monopolized the wireways.

Larry II

[Trishcuit]

Buy a computer microphone, it really is very cheap. You can talk through MSN messenger. Also, download Skype. Another way to talk around the world for free. Well actually for what it costs to keep your internet connection. But if you have internet already then ....yeah. It's free from computer to computer when the other person has Skype too and very cheap computer to phone. (you can phone people too. You on your computer and microphone to others on their telephone. )