Money Saving Advices on Skype

In addition to reducing the per-minute cost of your calls and reducing or eliminating fixed charges and taxes, there are other money-saving strategies you can employ by using Skype. I’ll skip the fatuous advice, such as “make fewer calls,” or “use e-mail instead,” because this chapter is about saving money by using Skype, or alternatives to Skype. Though I must say, “make fewer calls” has worked wonders in my family, and was accompanied by a family-wide sigh of relief!

Remember that you can call anyone who uses Skype for free. That means that if you convince people you call frequently, such as family members, friends, and even business contacts, to join Skype, you could save a lot of money. For example, suppose you spent $50 last year speaking to Uncle Tom on a land line. This year, however, you both decide to join Skype. That means you’ll save $50 this coming year, and each and every year beyond that. Indeed, you needn’t watch the clock any longer, and so can speak with Uncle Tom more often and for longer. In short, the more people you convert to Skype, the more money you will save.

Using Skype, you can even reduce the regular phone bills of others. You can do this by subscribing to one or more SkypeIn numbers.

How you do this is best illustrated using an example. Suppose you live in Baltimore, but have a lot of friends and family in London, England. By choosing a London number for SkypeIn, those same friends and family can call you in Baltimore for the cost of a local call—instead of an international call. Indeed, you can have several dial-in numbers (up to 10) dotted around the globe. Friends and family anywhere can then call what is a local number for them at their local rate (sometimes for free), and these calls will then be routed for free (courtesy of the Skype P2P network) to wherever you happen to be signed in to Skype. This way, friends and family can save money by calling your SkypeIn numbers at their local rates, while you can receive such calls anywhere on the planet!

Of course, this strategy will save money for others but not for you, as you will have to pay to subscribe to SkypeIn numbers. But think of all the goodwill it will buy you!