I worked in the telecom industry for many years, the folks that are saying the phone companies must allow porting are absolutely correct – it is a federal law.

Like #37 I’m a huge advocate of Google Voice/Talk (I love FREE). I set up a Google voice number and configured it to ring my prepaid phone. If I’m staying at a friend’s house I can add that phone number to the list and it will ring my friend’s number and my cell phone. Since I have Skype already set up I have it ring that number too. If you add the Google Talk app to your gmail page you can answer phone calls right there (and make them). All FREE in the US. I’ve only use the prepaid cell rarely now.

Another cool feature is that you can set it up to have unique vmail messages for certain people or groups of people. You can direct certain people or groups of people directly to voice mail. You can add a widget to your website that uses Google talk to have people call you (which you can direct to vmail, etc.) You can conference call folks together at no charge. If you use the Google voice mail it will transcribe the message for you and send it to your via email and/or txt. You can screen a call and listen to the voice mail as it is recorded and “pick” up the call if you’d like, etc., etc., etc. So many very cool features.

I have a friend that has a home business that I turned on to this. When a business call comes in it rings both his landlines, his cell phone and his wife’s phone – they never miss important calls now. Personal calls he directs to just his cell phone, etc.

Good luck, if you need any help with this feel free to email me.

I ported my landline from Qwest to Virgin Mobile. I’m on a pay-as-you go plan, but they also have monthly plans (all without a contract and no penalty for switching plans at any time).

They have an unlimited text and data plan (300 talk minutes) for $25 a month. You need a phone from them, but they do have the Samsung Intercept Android phone.

VM uses Sprint as the carrier.

Re: 7 reasons to rent instead of buy
Reason #1 is Less Risk. It says you shouldn’t calculate the mortgage you can afford based on two incomes because, “With unemployment at 10%, there is a one in ten chance of a single income being lost” That is not what 10% unemployment means, it means that 1 in 10 people are unemployed. And I have no idea why the author thinks that additionally means “even greater odds that one of your two jobs could disappear.” That makes no sense.

A counterpoint to the actual argument: When people get married or combine incomes, even if they don’t get a mortgage based on their new combined income, they often move to a bigger apartment or rent a better home based on their combined income. You still run a risk of not being able to pay rent if one of you loses your job. Breaking your lease or being evicted from your apartment may not be as damaging to your credit as defaulting on a mortgage, but it is damaging to your credit and it makes you just as homeless.

Also, you can always buy a house with a mortgage payment that can be supported by one income.

It’s great that someone is pointing out the “throwing your money away” fallacy and explaining why owning shouldn’t be a goal simply because everyone says it should be. It’s just that I’ve heard the argument so much, it’s really old news, at least in the PF world.

One thing to watch out for with the prepaid plans are some of the “refresh” requirements. It’s not always just a case of having money in the account. I have to add money every 120 days to keep the account active. So I started with an $80/2000 minute card, and add a $10/100 min. card every 119 days. So far I’m averaging a little over $5/month in usage, but I don’t use my phone that much. Still way better than the $39.xx/month I was giving Verizon.

When you port your number to the new service, the old provider should cancel your service. Or at least that as been the case the half dozen times I’ve ported my number (I’ve had the same cell phone number since college).

The best part is the Tracfone was like $30 (w/ double minutes for the life of the phone), then I bought 450 minutes (900) which don’t expire for a year. So, all-in-all about $165 ($40 VoIP adapter, $30 phone, and about $95 for the minutes) for the Tracfone with 900 minutes for a year. It’s paid for itself in about two months.

The only bad part is Tracfone charges you as soon as it begins connecting a call, so even if the call doesn’t go through, you get deducted minutes. However, after 3 months, I’ve only used like 100 minutes. Also, incoming calls to Sipgate are free, so as long as you use GV to connect the call, it doesn’t cost anything.

I know you asked about AT&T, but my wife successfully transferred her phone number from Verizon to pre-paid T-mobile. Be aware that if you go with T-mobile, they don’t allow data access via cell tower on their prepaids (your iPhone’s WiFi would still work). However, I’m now paying under $7 a month for the limited amount of calls and texting that I do (10c/min voice, 10c TXT sent, 5c TXT received). If you want data, you should go with another provider.

And, as a previous commenter noted, you should probably make the change while your AT&T number is still live.

You can get really nice greeting cards very cheaply at Costco. I got a box of like 30 cards for $15 a while ago, and they all have lots of beautiful embellishments on them. I don’t send them that often, so they’ll last me a long time. I don’t count ecards as actually getting a card.

As for home swimming pools, there are far more in the Boston suburbs than around DC. Some of this is that homes are less likely to be air conditioned and people put in pools rather than retrofitting for central air. Also, not as many developments with a shared central swimming pool.

Double me on the domain name squatters. There was a proposal to charge more for domains the more you owned, but I don’t think it went anywhere.

ps- prepay FTW. my cellphone is turned off most of the time. google voice + chat take care of most things. i used to have voIP but with google voice it’s mostly unnecessary, especially since my laptop runs all day AND i hate to be available all the time.

pps- i had to stalk my domain until the squatters abandoned it. i had to bid on it ($79) and apparently that i was the only bidder. what a waste! but it’s now forever mine. i hate squatters!

As for domain speculators, I hate them. At one of my old jobs, my boss paid something like $25k for a domain name because of a squatter.