First, welcome to the MMM community, kdms, and congrats on such a profound shift in such a small amount of time!
Second, I'm going to recommend you give a look at my
Communications Super Guide as a primer to start looking at your telecommunications bills in a different light. I know you're in Canda and the guide is painfully Amero-centric, but it'll at least give you a few ideas.
To start you off, look into
Voip.ms as a possible VoIP home phone provider. They're based out of Montreal, there's a Toronto based server, they have half penny a minute calling rates in Canada, Ontario DIDs, and CRTC approved e911 service. I'm not sure if they do number porting, though. They don't have unlimited plans that I know of, but when you're looking at $10 for ~33 hours of calling time, you could do far worse. I believe the short Canadian VoIP list includes
Call Centric,
Primus, and
Voipgo as well. I've no personal experience with any of those providers, so YMMV, but I do know Voip.ms is a bit of a VOIP darling. Research first. Possibly bridging your landline with an
OBi110 and a VoIP calling plan might help cut some costs if you can strip the landline down to bare minimum services just to deal with the alarm.
The features of the OBi110 might also give you a cheaper long distance option using the cellphones, too.
On the cellphone end, cursory prepaid is showing
Solo Mobile,
Virgin Mobile,
Fido,
NorthernTel,
PC Mobile,
chatr wireless, and
Petro-Canada as the major players. I'm not that familiar with the landscape up there wireless telecom wise, so I'd recommend a good long look at Howard Forums Canadian
standard and
prepaid wireless forums. Down here Stateside, prepaid is frequently the cheapest option for many low to moderate users, but it might not be the case up there given the prices I'm seeing. Solo Mobile and chatr do look the most promising, though. (And yes, I know there's also
Koodo, but given they're a Telus prepaid, they're probably not a real option. I also know Fido and chatr are Rogers subsidiaries, but dealing with a prepaid division often soothes the pains that come from dealing with the parent company under a contract.)
On the security system end, none of these really address that situation as VoIP and security/life alert style systems don't play well with the things. There's a few people on this forum who
aren't huge fans of paying money for an alarm system, and I'm one of them. Some variety of motion lights, loud noises, window bars, dogs, fake cameras and phony alarm company signs seem to be just as useful... so is living a minimalist lifestyle to where there's really not much of anything worth stealing, and if there is, that's what homeowners and renters insurance is for with a well documented list of valuable property. I know it's "non-negotiable", but perhaps you should have your spouse take stock of
why you need the alarm. Crunch the real numbers of money going in versus insurance coverage, value of items, just owning a well trained rottie (bonus, extra companionship!), real benefit, etc. Often, cold logic arrived at by them is the best solution as the numbers won't add up.
If you have any hope of saving any real money with these services, you're gonna need to revisit
having the talk with your spouse, both get on board equally with
everything, and proceed from there. It sounds like you're close to being equal on that front already, but given some of the seeming non-negotiables and troubles with the cuts made on these fronts, it might be worth revisiting. Until this point of contention changes, you're not going to have much luck trimming the fat on these bills and the advice proffered here isn't going to do you too much good. Don't forget too, that you can make some of these changes without giving up as much as you think just by changing providers.
I'll keep researching, though. If I find any other decent providers up in Canuckistan, I'll mention them. Good luck, and glad to have you with us twirling your 'stache!
