Cell Phone Bill Miminize Trick
Inventive Way To Save Money

Thought it was time to share this with other people, here it is, and it will change your life. Have you heard of googles GrandCentral service? If not now is the time to get acquainted with it, because it is amazing, and VERY useful. I have been using it since mid 2007, and I love it.

To show you how cool Grandcentral is I will list some of the features, just a small sampling though. Remember…. this article is about how to get a nice low cell phone bill, not what Grandcentral offers, but even these features are more than enough for any sane person to switch.

Picture of voicemail box so you can get an idea of what it looks like and how easy it is

Using your inbox you can Instantly convert a received voice mail message to Mp3 Format. You can email forward it to someone, audio and all. So lets say some weird stalker is leaving you message, well just email it to your local law enforcement. ( Just throwing out a random idea here. )

Now lets say you don’t want to go through the hassle of even receiving a call from said stalker. Well Grandcentral to the rescue, in the same area in the voicemail just click, Play "number not in service". Now when this person calls they receive a nice message telling them this number is no longer in use. I use this function all the time, one example of use. They say, "if you think no one cares about you, miss a car payment." So if you are like me who waits to pay something at the last second, but don’t like the calls, just add it to the not in service list.  You even have a Add to spam list, if you receive those annoying, "Do you have time to take a survey?" calls.

Map out your calls - Lets say someone calls and you are curious where the call came from. In the voicemail tab just click Map on the voicemail. Up comes a nice google map with a star marking the general location of the call.

Other things I do with the service is set it up to ring multiple phone numbers, Cell Phone, Office, etc. So this way where ever I am at during the work day I can get my calls. I also use the time scheduling feature, where I only receive business calls between 8am and 5pm, then they are automatically routed to my voicemail.

One of the best features……IT’S FREE!!! …. for now, I don’t know if they plan on adding a charge for service, its google, so it should be a small amount if they do add it.

On a side note, right now they can not port a number over to the service, they plan on adding this feature soon though. So you end up getting a brand new phone number to use with it. Its great to use a business phone number.

There are several other features but I will let you find out all the cool things it can do.

We are now returning back to the original reason for writing this article.

What grandcentral does is it acts as a middle person. When you click to call someone it connects the call, first it calls whatever number you have set in it. Then it calls the person you wanted to call.  So if your number is 123-456-7890, Grand Central will call this number first. This service works on mobile phones, and since it calls you to connect the call, well seems like a perfect combination with an unlimited incoming call plan. If you have access to the internet on your phone, log into grandcentral mobile service and you have your contact list ready for use.

If you have a phone that has internet access, even if its just something as lame as Sprint Vision, it will work.

So here are the steps.

1. Make sure your cell phone provider offers a unlimited incoming call plan - Before you switch to it, wait until you get your new grandcentral number
2. Click here and get an account, yes it says Reserve a Number, but whenever I have had a friend click and reserve in about an hour to a day he has an email waiting for him to sign up with a link.
3. Find your phone, access the internet with it.
4. Goto the address www.grandcentral.com/mobile on your phone.
5. Log in using your account information from grandcentral.
6. Select your mobile phone number in the list of access numbers for you. Put it in the little box at the bottom if you have not set up your mobile number in grand central yet
7. Click on Contact list, AND BOOKMARK THIS PAGE. I have this page bookmarked on my phone so that when I go to my favorites, I just click grandcentral contacts and theres my contact list.

Now when you click someone to call, grandcentral Calls you (no charge if you have the free incoming call plan), and then connects the call. Now you can talk forever and day and you will never go over your minutes. My current plan through sprint is 49.99 a month and I go through 3000 to 4000 minutes a month, but they are all incoming.(yes I know sprints support sucks, but it works great in my area) Add on internet Service for 10 to 15 dollars a month. Right now I can call anywhere, long distance, local, and not get charged.

At a later Date I will add how to add contacts to your grandcentral via the contact list through Grandcentral mobile. For those of you who need to add a new contact on the go. Its a little confusing how grand central explains it. Everything else they offer is simple to implement.