| Here are some things I have found that have saved me a lot of money. |
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| My long distance carrier- TotalCallUSA.com 4.9 cents in state and 3.9 cents nationwide. 6 second billing with 18 second minimum. No monthly fee. |
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Toll free incoming: I use AccessLine.com Flat rate of $3.45 per month to have the 800 number. This rate includes the first 50 minutes of incoming usage and its 6.9 cents per minute after that. One drawback is that if you do not already have an 800 number they will assign you a number but you can't take it with you if you ever leave them. I already have my own number so this did not affect me but you might find it wise to sign up elsewhere and then transfer to Access Line to be sure you can take the number with you if you ever change providers. Besides the low rates, they allow QUICK changes of where the toll free number rings. Mostly I set it to ring to my office phone but if I step out, it takes less than 15 seconds to transfer the incoming calls to my cell phone. Just as quick to change again when I get back to the office. No forwarding costs for this service. |
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| Insurance: Florists Mutual Insurance / Hortica is far and away the lowest cost and best provider for anyone in the floral industry. Workmans comp; life; auto; business coverage; liability; and more. I pay about half of what others tell me they pay. hortica-insurance.com or 800-851-7740 |
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| Internet Access: I find TotalSpeed.com to be as fast as any other dial up I have used. $6.95 per month |
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| Credit Card clearing: For very low volume clearing it is not worth while to pay the monthly fees of most clearing houses so I find Pay Pal, part of e-bay to work fine. PayPal.com An account is free to set up and they charge a flat 3% of each transaction with NO other fees. They also do checks by mail processing but its a bit harder. |
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ACH / CHECKS BY PHONE / WITHDRAW DIRECT FROM BANK ElectraCash.com has no monthly fee and a flat $1.50 per transaction. I find them easier to use than pay pal for taking money directly from a bank account. |
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| Web site hosting: Cheap-DomainRegistration.com offers 5,000 MB of space for $50/year. This site is hosted with them. |
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| Domain names: Cheap-DomainRegistration.com sold me the name Hungerfords.us for $6.95 per year. |
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Build a web site: This site is built with Ewisoft Website Builder. $35 ewisoft.com Took me a few hours to learn and I was on the web the next day. |
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Only one line for shop/House/Fax/Internet/ etc? Your local phone company can put a distinctive ring on your line for $2 or $3 per month. Its the same physical phone line but it rings differently so you know before you pick it up thats its a shop call rather than personal. I have a splitter device that routes one type of ring to my office answering machine and another type of ring to my home. You can get a third type of ring that your fax machine will recognize and connect to and so on. Depends on how many ring patterns your local company offers. |
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| Telephone calls while online: Found a little program called phonetray from TraySoft.com for $15. When I am online on my single phone line a screen comes up to show me that someone is calling in. I can choose to answer the call or not. It will put the internet on hold for 2 minutes while I take the call and then resume the internet where I left off. |
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