Financial Success

Traveling is stressful in itself.  When you travel internationally it is even more stressful.  Checking your luggage (and paying for it!), checking in at the ticket counter, the customs documentation, going through the long lines at security.  Compound that with the stress added from leaving the kids behind along with the ensuing worries.  If they are teenagers, like mine, then there are major worries.  Given that, you want to be sure that when you travel, you have a cost effective, economical way to get in touch with the kids.  

Well recently we traveled to Mexico to spend a few days at a resort.  And when I called my cell phone company to check on my rates, I got a tremendous shock!

Before we left, I wanted to make sure that I had all bases covered for our trip.  So, upon calling my cell phone company I found out that the per minute cost to talk from Mexico was 95 cents !  They did have a plan that I could subscribe to on a monthly basis and after paying my fee the per minute cost would drop to 45 cents.  Not much help there, huh?  So, I prepared my wife for the worst - the calls would have to be brief, because not only would AT&T take a significant cut, but also additional roaming charges may apply, based on the local rates.  It really didn't seem right for the cell phone companies to make that type of money, but when I got to Mexico, I found that everyone in our group was faced with the same problem. 

The fact that we had to pay that type of money to talk to our loves one back home infuriated me.  I felt as though I was being taken advantage of by cell phone company.  And then out of the clear blue sky, it came to me.  I remembered that a few years ago I had ran across an operation called Skype that offered Internet telephone calls.  When I tried it back then, the service really wasn't that good and there were limitations.  But desperate, I went to their website.  I found that with a laptop computer, microphone and headset, along with broadband access, I could easily make telephone calls from my computer.  I checked with the resort and found out they had broadband in each room.  My laptop had a built in microphone and I grabbed my earphones out of my IPOD and in a matter of minutes had signed up for Skype.  My wife tested it by calling my daughter from the computer and got crystal clear reception. 

The best part though was the cost.  I funded my Skype account with just $10.00.   When we returned from our trip, we still had over $5.00 in the account.  Our Skype calls cost us only 2.1 cents per minute!

So anyway, if you are traveling internationally or otherwise, and want to save money on overpriced cell  phone calls, you may want to check out Skype as an option.  Just click on the link below for additional information. 

Skype Store USA