After dozens of conversations about saving money with peers and colleagues who have home or small businesses negatively impacted by the global economic downturn, I always and immediately offer up strategies that I use which might benefit them also and here's one I use to save money and engage in much richer and more meaningful communications.

One of the most expensive fixed costs home or small businesses have is telephony. While many people have thrown out landlines in favor of their mobile phones, a colleague I met with last week told me she pays $50 per month for a landline ($600 per year) in her home office. She keeps it since mobile phone quality is so much lower and she knows using only her mobile phone isn't comfortable for her and annoys her clients as well.

This post isn't a commercial for Skype and, frankly, I have some fundamental concerns about their closed, proprietary codebase, but this Skype thingy is one, great telephony option that works seamlessly, is amazingly powerful and is really inexpensive.

I've been realizing, however, that all of my geeky friends and tech-savvy nerd acquaintances get it…but the majority of people who could benefit from Skype are either overwhelmed (and Skype's site is confusing) or intimated and nervous about replacing landline telephony with this techie solution.

Here's my story about using Skype and why you might find it a great strategy to save money and communicate better too:

• Skype-to-Skype: Download the software for free and you can call anyone else with Skype (often 14M+ people are logged on at any given time) anywhere on earth for free AND if you each have a webcam, you can see each other in the video window if you so desire

• SkypeOut: You can "pay-as-you-go" by depositing as little as $10 in your account and use these for "SkypeOut minutes" that you can use to call any landline or mobile phone anywhere on earth for 1-4 cents per minute. That said, I have a monthly subscription and pay Skype $3 per month for their unlimited calling plan in North America (again, to any landline or mobile phone)

• SkypeIn: I love this feature since someone on a landline can call my SkypeIn phone number and my computer rings (or voicemail kicks in if the computer is turned off). When you have that $3 monthly subscription, you get $30 off the purchase of a 12-month online number or $6 off the purchase of a 3-month online number. Without a subscription, you pay $60 for a full year of an online number or $18 for the 3-month online number.

But it gets better….

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