Getting connected the first time is cheap. It's the bill that comes for the second month for all those minutes that gets you!

My first job was washing dishes at a cafe for about 30 hours a week for minimum wage (which in my state at the time was around $5 an hour). I also got a portion of the tips made by the front room staff (usually a few bucks a day). So as a teen who wasn’t expected to pay rent or anything it was a pretty decent amount of money!

I also installed the phone line tap in my room myself, so initially I just had to pay for them to come out and turn on the line via the hookup box outside. I think it was like $50 for the initial setup and I saved $100 by running the tap myself.

Mid 90s you'd only pay $15 a month for basic service in some places. Probably less for second lines.

ISPs were spottier. I knew some people with T1s paid for with weekend jobs, but some could barely scrape 56k costs.