Bible Money Matters

Christian personal finance

Menu
    • About
    • Archives
    • Contact
    • Close
  • Making Money
      • Popular Articles

        • 50 Ways To Make Money: Maximizing, Creating And Increasing Your Income
        • 10 Weird And Unconventional Ways To Make Money
        • Making Money With A Blog (e-Book)
        • 10 Places To Sell Or Trade Your Unused (Or Broken) Electronics
        • Ways To Make Extra Money Series: 20 More Income Generating Ideas From Our Readers
        • Making Side Income Can Help Blunt The Impact Of Becoming A One Income Family
        • Earn Cash Back With Discover it® Credit Card
      • Recent Articles – Making Money

        • Best Sites Like Fiverr To Make Money As A Freelancer
        • 13 Of The Best Independent Contractor Jobs
        • 25 Of The Best Gig Economy Jobs
        • How To Make Money Blogging: Turn A Blog Into A Business
      • Categories

        • Making Money
        • Investing
        • Retirement
        • Jobs & Work LIfe
        • Money
        • Income
    • Close
  • Saving Money
      • Popular Articles

        • 50 Easy Ways To Save Money Every Month
        • 10 Weird And Unconventional Ways To Save Money
        • 10 Practical Ways To Save Money And Increase Your Net Worth
        • How To Save Money On Just About All Of Your Regular Monthly Bills
        • Ways To Watch TV Without Paying An Arm And A Leg For Cable TV
        • Save Money On Your Hospital Bill - Just By Asking
      • Recent Articles – Saving Money

        • How To Save $100k In 7 Practical Steps
        • Stairs App Review: Save And Invest To Earn 4-6% Interest
        • Honey Review: Save Money Automatically When You Shop Online
        • 9 Convincing Reasons Why You Need An Emergency Fund
      • Categories

        • Saving Money
        • Frugality
        • Planning
        • Finance
        • Saving For Retirement
        • Savings Accounts
    • Close
  • Banking
      • Best Rates For 2019

        • Best Credit Cards
        • Best Savings Accounts
        • Best Mortgage Rates
        • Best CD Rates
        • Best Brokerages
        • Free Credit Scores
      • Recent Reviews

        • TradeStation Review: Commission Free Stock And ETF Trades
        • Firstrade Review: Commission Free Trades on Stocks, Crypto, And Options
        • Cadre Real Estate Investing Review: Commercial Real Estate Investing
        • Axos Self Directed Trading Review: Invest, Trade Stocks For Free
      • Categories

        • Bank & Software Reviews
        • Investing
        • Credit
        • Banking
        • Mortgage
        • Insurance
        • Family Budget
    • Close
  • Recommended
  • Video
    • Close

Ooma Home Phone Service After One Year: Saving Big Bucks On Home Phone Service

By Peter Anderson 1 Comment - The content of this website often contains affiliate links and I may be compensated if you buy through those links (at no cost to you!). Learn more about how we make money. Last edited March 24, 2014.

Share15
Pin113
Tweet28
Share6
162 Shares

A while back I was researching all of the tips and tricks that my family could use to save on our regular monthly expenses.

I was able to find ways to cut our cell phone bill, get free mobile internet, cut our homeowners and auto insurance rates, cut our home energy costs, cut our cable bill and much more.

One of the more successful ways that we’ve been able to save hundreds of dollars every year is by cutting our landline home phone service through the phone company, and switching to a VOIP home phone through a company called Ooma.

This past week I got an email from Ooma reminding me that I had been using their service for an entire year now. I thought today would be a good time to take a look back and see just how well Ooma has performed for us in the past year.

Quick Navigation

  • Our 1 Year Anniversary With Ooma
  • Reasons We Switched To Ooma
  • Hundreds In Savings In Our First Year With Ooma
  • How Well Has The Service Worked?
  • Ooma Service Has Been A Big Saver

Our 1 Year Anniversary With Ooma

ooma telo home phone serviceSo now that we’ve been using the service for over a year, are we glad that we switched, are we happy with the service, and would we make the switch again? Yes, yes and yes.

We’re happy that we switched and would definitely do it again. The service has worked flawlessly after a few initial bugs, and the savings that we’ve seen over the past twelve months have more than paid for our initial investment in the Ooma Telo device. More about that later.

Here’s a brief look at our un-boxing and setup of the device.

Reasons We Switched To Ooma

Over our first 3 years of using Ooma for our home phone service we will have saved $1218.62 over our previous home phone plan.

There are quite a few reasons that we switched to Ooma. Among them:

  • Low startup and monthly cost: The cost for the Ooma device itself was affordable at $139.99 (even cheaper now), and the fact that the monthly cost was only $4.53 meant that we were paying almost nothing for monthly service costs. After we paid off that initial investment we’d be saving hundreds of dollars a year. (The monthly costs are mainly for government taxes/fees for 911 service)
  • Ability to port our number: We were able to port our existing phone number to the Ooma service so that we wouldn’t have to give all of our friends and family a new number to call. Porting the number was a quick and easy process.
  • Service features: We went from having a phone with just caller ID and voicemail for about $44/month, to a phone with a myriad of other features for only $4.53/month. We still have voicemail and caller ID, but now we also have online account access for our voicemail, call logs, call blocking and more. If you pay for the premium package you also get things like voicemail to .mp3 email notifications and a variety of other things.  In short you get more services for less money.
  • Service reliability: I talked with friends who had been using Ooma before jumping on board, and they assured us that the service had been very reliable for them. While it didn’t work perfect for everyone in reading online reviews, for the most part they seemed to have very solid reviews.

Hundreds In Savings In Our First Year With Ooma

So how does our cost for our first year of service break down? Here’s a detailed look:

  • Ooma Telo device – $139.99: We got the device on sale for $139.99 a year ago, although you can find it for anywhere from $89.99 refurbished, all the way up to $149.99. The normal everyday price on Amazon is currently $126.20.
  • Fees, service charges and taxes – $4.53/month: The only monthly fees you’ll ever pay are the fees associated with having 911 service on the device, and then state and local taxes. For our zip code it came out to only $4.53/month or about $54.36/year. Find out how much you’d pay a month here: Ooma Tax Calculator.
  • Phone number porting charge – $39.99: After deciding that the service worked well for us we ported over our phone number to Ooma at a one time cost of $39.99. You can get this for free if you pay for 1 year in advance of the premium service ($9.99/month).

So our out of pocket cost for our first year was a grand total of $234.34.

So how much did we save by using Ooma this first year? If we had stuck with our old phone service provider we would have paid:

  • Phone company landline – $43.38/month: We paid $43.38/month after service fees and taxes. That would be a grand total of $520.56/year.

So when you figure it out for that first year, we’ve already saved a total of $286.22 on our phone service in the first year with Ooma.

If you extrapolate that out for the second and third year, we’ll save even more with no equipment or porting costs. Year 2 we’ll see savings of $466.20, and same in year 3. Here’s an approximate cost savings from Ooma for our situation, although it doesn’t take into account all the things I mention above.

ooma savings

How Well Has The Service Worked?

The Ooma Telo device only took us about 15 minutes to setup when we got it, however we did have some initial hiccups with the system. At the time we were on an old DSL line that was extremely slow, and we had noticeable latency and delays on some of the calls, and some degraded audio quality. This would especially happen if someone else was online streaming video or something along those lines.

After a call to support we were able to optimize our setup to improve the quality of service. Essentially we had to go into our router’s settings and give priority to network traffic from the Ooma device over other internet traffic. After we made a few small changes the majority of delays and poor call quality went away.

After we moved and upgraded our internet connection, things improved even more and we haven’t had any issues since then. Our Ooma service has essentially been on auto-pilot and has just worked for the past year. The only downtime we had was when our power went out this winter for a few hours. Other than that it has been rock solid.

Ooma Service Has Been A Big Saver

Signing up for the Ooma service has been a great decision for our family. Even though there were some initial startup costs associated with Ooma, we paid back those costs after a few months just through the savings on our monthly bill. Now those savings are adding up every month and we’ll be saving over $450 every year. That’s not too bad!

What could your family do with an extra $450?

I would highly recommend that if you’re still using a landline at your home to give Ooma a try. I think you’ll be happy with the service as well.

Related Ooma Content

  • Ooma VOIP Service Review
  • How To Setup Your Ooma Telo Device In 15 Minutes Or Less
  • 6 Months Using Ooma As Our Main Home Phone
  • Cutting Our Mobile And Home Phone Bills Using Ooma And FreedomPop
  • Use New Technology To Replace The Old And Save Money

Related Posts

  • Ooma Review Update: 6 Months Using Ooma As Our Main Home Phone

    We've been using Ooma home phone service for over 6 months now. Would we still suggest that others use them as their primary home phone?

  • Ooma Telo Setup
    Ooma Review: Save Hundreds On Your Phone Bill By Ditching Your Landline For VOIP

    VOIP services like Ooma can give you home phone service for next to nothing, much less than the cost of a traditional landline. Find out…

  • 3 Home Improvements That Can Help You Save Money

    Here are three home improvements that you can do in order to save money in the long run.

Share15
Pin113
Tweet28
Share6
162 Shares
Last Edited: 24th March 2014 The content of biblemoneymatters.com is for general information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Visitors to biblemoneymatters.com should not act upon the content or information without first seeking appropriate professional advice. In accordance with the latest FTC guidelines, we declare that we have a financial relationship with every company mentioned on this site.

This article is about: Frugality, Saving Money

About Peter Anderson

Peter Anderson is a Christian, husband to his beautiful wife Maria, and father to his 2 children. He loves reading and writing about personal finance, and also enjoys a good board game every now and again. You can find out more about him on the about page. Don't forget to say hi on Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook!

Comments

    Share Your Thoughts: Cancel reply

  1. Leonard @ The Wallet Doctor says

    This is some great advice. The technology of VOIP is relatively knew for many people in the developed world, but it is used frequently by people in the developing world where phone service can be sketchy. Thanks for sharing your personal experiences with Ooma!

    Reply
Previous Post: How To Live Below Your Means And Live Well: Tips To Save On Food
Next Post: The Hiding Place: A Reflection Of Faith
Discover Investment Platforms

Popular Posts

  • 21 Easy Ways To Earn Free Amazon Gift Cards
  • 10 Best Free Tax Filing Services And Software Online
  • 21 Apps That Pay You Real Money Fast
  • 17 TV Apps And Live TV Streaming Services To Watch TV Free
  • 30 Legit Online Jobs That Pay Well
  • 37 Easy Ways To Get Free Gift Cards
  • How To Get Free Stock
  • 40 Easy Ways To Get Free Money Fast
  • 21 Places To Read Free Books Online
  • 24 Legit Online Jobs
  • 17 Best Work From Home Jobs: A List Of Legit Online Jobs That Pay Well

Recent Posts

  • How To Save $100k In 7 Practical Steps
  • How to Save Money When Remodeling A Home
  • How To Hire A Contractor For Your Remodeling Project
  • Remembering 9/11 Years Later: Where Were You On That Fateful Day?
  • TradeStation Review: Commission Free Stock And ETF Trades
  • Firstrade Review: Commission Free Trades on Stocks, Crypto, And Options
  • Cadre Real Estate Investing Review: Commercial Real Estate Investing
  • Best Sites Like Fiverr To Make Money As A Freelancer
  • Axos Self Directed Trading Review: Invest, Trade Stocks For Free
  • 30 Quotes About Easter And Resurrection: He Is Risen!

Disclaimer

The information contained in BibleMoneyMatters.com is for general information or entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional financial advice. Please contact an independent financial professional for advice regarding your specific situation.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, we state that we have a financial relationship with some of the companies mentioned in this website. This may include receiving access to free products and services for product and service reviews and giveaways.

Any references to third party products, rates, or websites are subject to change without notice. We do our best to maintain current information, but due to the rapidly changing environment, some information may have changed since it was published. Please do the appropriate research before participating in any third party offers.

Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

We respect your privacy: Privacy Policy.

Thanks for visiting!

Bible Money Matters - Seen On These Sites and more..
Bible Money Matters is a personal finance, entrepreneurship and investing community. Give more, save more and live more.

Copyright © 2023 · Bible Money Matters | Sitemap | Advertise | Privacy Policy