After the festive period, you might have had a few too many mince pies, and seen more questionable jumpers than you care to recall, but one thing you can never have too much of is family time. For many, who could do with learning a few tricks to take care of themselves as well as everyone else, the holidays become such a stressful period that family time is not quality time, and you’re left feeling like you barely got to have a real conversation with anybody. And even if you did, once or twice a year is not enough! You need to hear about how your uncle got on with that book, how your cousin’s trip across Europe was, whether your young nephew got the role in the school play.

Of course, finding time to call every member of your family every week can be tricky, when we all have so much to do all the time. Besides, it would result in a lot of tedious repetition as you recount the details of your promotion over and over again. Not to mention the sizeable phone bills so many minutes being racked up could produce. The ideal, of course, is to all chat together at once, as if you were sitting around a ginormous turkey all over again.

This is one of those times when you remember that conference calling is absolutely not just for business. Lots of prayer groups use conference calls, and teleconferences are huge in sports. Teachers, trainers, and even musicians have all used conference calling to reach their students, customers, and fans. So why not use them to talk to your family?

Don’t worry if anybody is technically-challenged – services like WHYPAY? provide really easy to use teleconferencing. All you have to do is click onto WHYPAY?’s homepage and hit the Big Green Button. This will automatically generate your own conference call room number, and the PIN to access it. Just share these with all the family, along with the telephone number they need to dial to access it, and you’re all set! WHYPAY? can even take care of this with its automated invite service, which can include a handy calendar attachment so they don’t forget when your virtual meet-up is scheduled. Pick up the phone at the agreed upon time, dial in your room number and secure PIN, and the room is yours to use for as long as you’d like with up to a hundred participants – you can get the whole extended family involved! You can keep using this room as often as you want, depending on how much you guys have to catch up on.

And it doesn’t have to break the bank either! There are genuinely free conference call services out there, like WHYPAY?. WHYPAY? charges absolutely nothing for the service it provides. Calls are charged within your bundled minutes included on your contract, as all calls to 03 numbers must be, according to Ofsted regulations. If you don’t have minutes available, it’s still only charged at the standard rate for landlines. So it’s just like calling one of your aunties, rather than everybody. There are no hidden charges or membership fees. You don’t even have to give any of your details. It’s that simple. So no excuses for not knowing how your sister’s wisdom teeth are doing or whether the niece got the gerbil. Happy New Year!