AT&T Access

By Jeff777BC - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

When my son learns something cool on his own, as an unschooler, I like to share what he learned with my friends. Recently, after my son decided to learn some coding on his own from KhanAcademy.com, and I shared what he was coding with my Facebook friends, someone asked me if they thought I'd be able to unschool my children as well if I didn't have the amazing educational internet sites available. I've done some thinking on the topic, and have come to the conclusion that having the internet available makes my ability to educate my children vastly easier, especially given the fact that we don't have a decent public library system locally.

But it isn't just about educating my children cheaply. I've discovered that having internet at home has made such an overall difference in terms of my ability to readily find information that ends up saving my family large amounts of money regularly.
For example, a friend of mine doesn't have internet in her house, and often calls me asking for advice, to look up recipes for her for low cost made from scratch foods, instead of needing to pay much more for ready made versions of the same.


I save so much money by being able to network to get my hands on free or cheap second hand items, price compare easily online without needing to leave my home, not to mention being able to order things for low prices through the net instead of buying from the more expensive places in person.
I also sometimes teach myself how to repair various items myself or do other skills that I'd generally pay someone else to do by following tutorials I find free online.
I also use the internet to stay in touch with friends and families, both local and abroad, which saves me money on international and local phone bills, stamps, etc...

When I think about all the people out there in the world that would be able to save so much money if they had access to the internet, and thus the means to reach all the money saving tools I use regularly, it makes me sad to realize that they simply can't afford internet.

Therefore, when AT&T contacted me to tell me about their program  Access, whose goal is to help bridge this exact digital divide, between low income families and everyone else, I was really excited to share this with you. I know many readers would either benefit from this program themselves (if they can switch to this instead of paying for the regular service they currently have), or they may know of friends and family that would benefit from having internet but currently can't afford it.

So what is Access?

It is a low cost internet service for qualifying households- as low as $5 or $10 per month, for the fastest available internet speed in their area.

To qualify, you must be a households with at least one resident participating in the U.S. Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and located within the 21 states where AT&T offers home Internet service.

Hopefully this program can benefit you and yours! It sounds amazing!

For more information about this program, and how you can apply, check out the AT&T Access Program here.