Magic Jack PLUS ~ Is it worth it?

Over the last few years, I have tried to find ways to cut our spending.

We took Financial Peace University in the Fall of ’09 and got ourselves on track with a budget and paying off debt. One of those spending cuts was our phone. We got rid of long distance and were paying for local phone calls only. Although it dropped our bill, we were still paying about $45 a month just to have a land line.

Some may ask why we kept the phone since my husband and I each have a cell phone. There are two main reasons: we needed the line for our fax machine and for easy phone memorization for my kids. It is easier to remember one main number rather than two different numbers. Plus, when the schools call they call our home line and I can always hear that phone in our house. There are many times my cell phone ringer is off.

Recently my husband was listening to Clark Howard and he recommended the Magic Jack.

It uses the internet for phone calls or VOIP {voice over internet}. I was pretty skeptical that it would work because years ago I know several people who used Vonage and the connection was always horrible.

During our September 30 Days of Nothing Challenge, I discovered that Magic Jack was offering a 30 free trial.  Their Magic Jack Plus offered porting service {where you could transfer your current number} and they had a new feature where you could plug the Magic Jack into an outlet rather than your computer.

After receiving our Magic Jack Plus, I plugged it into the computer and tried it out.

I called a dear friend and talked to her for an hour and a half! The call was clear with no static. The only issue is that about 10 minutes before our conversation ended the call dropped and I couldn’t get the phone to work. I ended up calling her on my cell.

I decided to try plugging it into an outlet and setting it up through our router. It was easy to do. We did have some issues with calls. When we called several people, some said it sounded like a bad connection. I also discovered that when people called me, I could barely hear them. After some resetting of our router, the calls became quite clear. My husband said that the connector that allows the MJ to plug into the wall was loose.

There is one big thing that is very irritating about the Magic Jack. 

The Magic Jack website is awful! It is not very user friendly and it’s difficult to navigate. 

My first clue was the initial signup. After registered for the free trial I had to go through several pages of ads where they try to get you to “add on” to your service. It was very annoying.

When we initiated the Magic Jack, we had issues with the website…again. It gave you two choices of picking a new number to use or one that had the * symbol. We could not find out how to port our number. After looking around, we just picked a number. It wasn’t until after we picked the number that we discovered that you then had the option to port your number {for $20}. Because we wanted to test it out first, we just used the new number.

Once we decided to keep the Magic Jack and port our number, my husband could not find the porting option. He finally had to use the virtual assistant and even the assistant was giving us the wrong instructions. We both are pretty computer savvy so for us to have to use a virtual assistant means there is a big problem with navigation on a website.

Why are we keeping the Magic Jack?

The main reason is that it’s only $20 A YEAR!

There is an initial cost of $81.64:

• Magic Jack Plus & 1st year of service $69.95
• Shipping $7.95
• Regulatory and Compliand Expense $3.74

Last year we spent approximately $540 a year on phone service. Now it will only be $20 a year AND we have long-distance available.

For a $520 savings I can handle the crappiness of their website. Once you set it up, there should be no need to go back to it.

Pros:

• $20 a year {after initial purchase}
• Free 30 day trial
• Call Forwarding
• Port your phone number
• Voicemail messages go to email {I can see/hear messages without dialing the phone}
• Easy set-up

I was not compensated for this post in any way. There are no affiliate links {which is too bad}. This is just a product I tried in order to cut costs.  If you want to try MJ, visit their website http://www.magicjack.com/.