In early March, I took advantage of Vonage's new low rate plan of $14.99 for 500 minutes and 3.9 cents/min thereafter with a hope to cut my bill even further from my then-current $24.99/month phone bill. I did some homework based on previous months' usage and it appeared that it is going to be a good deal. The conversion to the new plan included a one-time $10 service charge.

This CFI initiative seems to backfire, at least for now. The first month bill shows 869 minutes of usage and a charge of $29.44. If this trend continues, then this is going to be the worse CFI initiative I every explored. The bad news is, to convert from the $14.99 plan to $24.99 plan, the service charge will be $20.

This s a good lesson to learn: in order to take advantage of some new pricing schedule, I should cover my base to make sure there is limited downside. For all the other CFI initiatives I took this year, including downgrading my Comcast service, cancelling USAToday, and using a better-rewarding credit card, there is no downside risk at all (i.e. I'll not pay more anyway), but in this Vonage case, I am taking an unlimited risk and potential gain is limited (up to $10).

For now, I will leave the plan as it is for a couple of months and see if I need to convert back to my original plan. Hopefully, My family and I will adjust our phone usage pattern to improve a little bit in this aspect.