Has this happened to you yet? Have you dropped your cellphone in the toilet, a cup of tea, or washed it in the laundry?

If has not happened to you yet it may, after all they are making them smaller and smaller these days and we can easily forget they are in our pockets at times, or let them slip out of our fingers easily.

So what is your plan if this happens? Do you have phone insurance? For some of us the answer is simple, phone insurance, but you are limited to how many times you can “mess up” with cellphone insurance. Then there is the iPhone which you may or may not can get insurance on. I am uncertain at the time of this writing.

Today I just wanted to give you a fall back option if you are in a pinch somewhere and you need to get back to talking asap.

Visit a local Target or Walmart store and go to electronics and look for a GoPhone.

What is a GoPhone?
GoPhone is the trademark for AT&T Mobility’s pay-as-you-go (PAYG) service.
With a GoPhone, you can pick the plan that works best for you, or pay as you go. Either way, there’s no annual contract or credit check.

You can pick one up for as little as $18 and on up to $99 for the moto razr v3 model.

The GoPhones come with a sim card that must be activated after you have left the store and powered it up to begin your first phone call.

What is a sim card you ask?
A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) on a removable SIM Card securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices (such as computers) and mobile phones. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device.

Ok so now you know where to get a GoPhone and you know what a sim card is.

Armed with this information you can take your damaged cellphone that you dropped in the toilet or in a drink and remove the sim card from it. Now put that sim card in the GoPhone and power it up.

Now you can make calls once again. It really is that simple. This will allow you to keep on going untill you can get your better phone serviced.

Most of the time you will have your contacts and all intact as well. If not I suggest that you take this time right now to copy your contacts to your sim card right now so that if this does happen to you, you will have your contacts on your sim.

This varies from phone to phone on how to copy your contacts to your sim, so check your manual. I may do a write up later about how to do that at a later date.

I absolutely love Skype and here is why…

Think about this for a second. The unfortunate part about checking our mailboxes is BILLS!

So I get a water bill and a light bill and (used to be) a phone bill.
What happens if I don’t use any water for the month? Water bill shows $0.00.
What happens if I don’t use any electricity for the month? Last I checked $0.00

What happens if I don’t use the phone for an entire month? That’s right, I still get charged like $60.00 or so for fees and the privilege of having a land line phone. At the very least you might be able to get it down to $26.00. This is ridiculous!

It all started when I was at Wal-Mart one day and noticed that they had a super clearance of electronic items. One of them happened to be a USB Skype phone and I thought to myself that for $2.00 I really couldn’t go wrong and should try it out.

Actually to be honest I have always been a lover of prank calling and thought this would be fun. I must admit that was my First thought. My second thought was more along the lines of business.

At that time I was beginning to start an online computer help website after just being laid off from work, and it would involve people calling me with computer problems and I would remote into their computer and help them.

I started to realize that since I didn’t have a house phone, that I would be using my cell phone for business and this would really eat up my minutes. I had an unlimited data plan but only 450 nationwide minutes per month and to this was already costing me $120 a month.

Now I could have purchased another plan to give me unlimited calling for another $50 a month, but this would be just added expense on a per month basis and cell phone service at my home is not the best.

I was thinking that Skype may be the answer to this.

One Saturday I decided to plug in the USB Skype phone and go to the Skype website and download the software onto my computer. It came with 100 free minutes and once I was all setup I decided to call my Dad and see how it sounded before committing to anything more. After all I only had $2.00 in this so far.

I connected with him over the phone and the conversation was flawless. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was crystal clear despite what others on the internet were saying about Skype’s voice quality. I figure this has got to be my solution to a business phone, so I began to look over their packages.

I ended up getting a Skype Out for a year for $23.00.

That would allow me to call anywhere in the USA and Canada anytime, unlimited calling.

Then I needed a number for people to call me, so I bought a number that was local to me since I plan on most of my customers being near. The number was $24.00 a year for unlimited calling.

This brings my total for the year to $47.00 for unlimited calling inbound and outbound with a number for me to give out so people can call me. Not bad at all.

Now I know what you are thinking… do I have to be tied to the computer all the time?

Well for me and with the purpose in mind, I will be in front of the computer all the time, but you don’t have to be.

There are lots of things you can use.

There is a Belkin Wi-Fi phone (Part # F1PP000GN-SK) http://www.belkin.com/skype/howitworks/ that you can use with your wireless network to go about through your home or take with you on the road and use in hotels, work office, airports, or wherever there is a wireless connection.

There is also a desktop internet phone for Skype (Part # F1PP010EN-SK) http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=404607 for those that do not have a computer, but do have an internet connection or simply just want the phone located somewhere in the home and not have it tied to the computer.

I ended up getting a skype headset and a cordless telephone, a cheap one, one of those v-tech cheap ones.

I also got this Zoom Phone Adapter for Skype – Model 5900 http://www.zoom.com/products/voip_products.html#skype_products

You can get more hard ware here

Buy Skype hardware now

I can now use my headset or the cordless handset and walk about the house and even into the yard.

There are a ton of things you can do with Skype!

Cheap calls
Call phones and cell phones anywhere at low rates.
Skype to Skype calls are 100% free.
Online number

Friends call you from a regular phone and reach you on Skype – anywhere.
You can pick a number that’s local to your area.
I know people that have parents that live in another state. Their parents do not have a computer so a Skype to Skype call is out of the question. Instead my friend gets a number that’s local to his parents so when the parents call, the number is local to them.

SMS
Send text messages directly from Skype.
Voicemail
Never miss a call.
Call forwarding
Get your calls on your cell phone when you’re offline.

There is an option where you can set it to send the call to your cell phone or any phone really after a certain time limit, like 15 seconds for example.

Pay as you go, Pay monthly, or do like I did and just pay for it by the year.
You get it at a discounted price of you do so.

You can find out more about skype here.

3 months for the price of 2 on all 3 or 12 month calling subscriptions from Skype.

Dont forget you can use it for you business too!
Skype for Business