For many years now, I have been paying for long distance calls on my home phone even though I very seldom make a long distance call.

I found the best way to cut the cost was to cancel the long distance part of my phone service and purchase a phone card and keep it by the phone. I now save a total of about $12 a month, if you've taken a close look at your recent long-distance phone bill, you may have noticed the rates have been going up.

You may want to consider using a prepaid long distance phone card as well. If you only make occasional long distance calls, a prepaid cards offers an alternative to the high cost of the Long Distance portion of your phone bill and can save you money. You pay in advance and can purchase a certain amount of long-distance minutes.

I searched for the best and lowest calling card available, the best prepaid phone card deals have no hidden fees and feature US rates of less than 3 cents per minute.

The site I found has a large choice of prepaid phone cards, accepted PayPal, so I avoided using my credit card and at the bottom of the page was a link for an affiliate program which I could use to save an additional 16% off the cost of the phone cards.

They also offer Cellular prepaid cards that I can purchase at a discount and also save the additional 16%, I purchased a pre-paid Tracfone from Walmart for $15 that included lifetime double minutes, everytime I purchase additional minutes it automatically doubles. I'm now paying less than $6 a month for my cell phone, a large savings from the $24, I was paying.

Another way to save is to avoid calling 411 information service from your cell phone that can cost a dollar or more, use a free directory assistance Free411 by calling 1-800-free411 or a Google similar service, 1-800-GOOG-411.

See the savings for yourself