COMMENT
Cheap As Chips Phone Calls

Six months ago I signed up for a cheap telephone service that I had read about on our Living Below Your Means discussion board.

I was a bit dubious because it sounded too good to be true - call any landline in the UK, talk for as long as you like and pay just 1p for the cost of connecting the call. As someone whose monthly BT phone bill was usually around the £40-£60 mark, I was obviously keen to cut my costs without having to cut down on my chit-chat time.

Having now used Call18866 for six months, I've just worked out that I must have saved myself around £210 on my phone bills! I still have to pay BT's £10.50 monthly line rental but the cost of my calls has plummeted.

As it happens Call18866 increased the connection fee to 2p in March but my bills are still averaging a little over a fiver a month and they're only that high because I call people's mobiles occasionally and that costs 12p a minute (3p per min at weekends).

What I should do, but haven't got around to yet, is register with Call1899 who only charge 10p a minute to mobiles although their landline connection fee is higher than Call18866's at 3p.

Obviously, you have to get used to dialling 18866 (or 1899) before every phone call - and you have to remember to dial the full STD code even if it's just a local call - but you soon get used to it. And, if you've got a forgetful household, you can use an autodialer that automatically dials 18866 for you whenever you pick up the phone.

When we last wrote about Call18866, we had an offer from autodialer manufacturer, MMTeL, that we couldn't refuse so, for the next month only, Fools who are interested can buy an autodialer at a Foolish price and with free post and packing too. Just click here.

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