Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Saving Money: Cell Phone Plans

 It has been over 6 months since Todd and I have switchedfrom a contracted cell phone plan to prepaid.  We had AT&T, and I decided to stay with them because they had the best priced plan for how I use my phone: a lot of texting, few minutes and no data.  I also chose to stay with AT&T because I didn’t want to have to purchase a new phone.  Todd, on the other hand, wanted to try Straight Talk through Walmart.  Due to where we live and whatever service provider they were using, his signal was not the best and his calls were dropped frequently.  Thank goodness it was a month-by-month plan!  He then switched to T-Mobile’s prepaid plan and experienced the same issues.  By the third month, he switched to a Verizon prepaid plan and has been happy ever since! 

Our contracted cell phone plan was costing us $125.00+/month for 3 phones (Todd’s mom had one of the phones so they could talk mobile-to-mobile without burning minutes in our plan: we do not have a land line).  With this plan, we had a set amount of minutes that could be rolled over each month if they went unused, unlimited text and only Todd’s phone had internet access.  Today, with have:

My Plan: 250 minutes/month + unlimited text for $25.00/month
Todd’s Plan: 500 minutes/month + unlimited text + unlimited data use* for $35.00/month

This works perfect for us.
I have yet to use all of my minutes each month though Todd has had to conserve his minutes at the end of each month (I married a talker and a mama’s boy!).

I like that with these cell phone plans, we are paying for only what we really need and use.  By doing so, we are saving over $60/month on our cell phone plans.  Not only that, if for any reason we want to eliminate a cell phone, we can do so without the large penalty!

Do you use your cell phone for fun (social media, games, etc.) or just as a way to communicate with others?  Have you considered a prepaid phone? They sure have come a long way from the TracPhone I had in college for emergencies!


*In order to be part of this plan, they do not allow smart phones.

6 comments:

  1. This has my official frugal approval! I *SO* got sick of paying monthly wireless fees so the very day my contract expired, I went into Wal-Mart and asked for the cheapest thing I could do - they said it would be Tracphone. $30 at a time for 90-days of coverage. I'm in! I only use my cell for talk - not for computing. I can do everything else on my laptop and desktop computers. Win-win!!!!!!!!

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    1. This is awesome, Antonio! You are more frugal than we are in this department. Great job! One day, I hope to be able to go with something like yours - $30 for 90 days. Baby steps, though. :-)

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  2. We are in the process of switching from verizon contracts to pre paid. So far, so good :)

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    1. Awesome! So far, hubby has LOVED his Verizon plan. No problems whatsoever...even in our rural area where there arent many cell towers available. Thank you for visiting the blog and commenting!

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  3. Next time you are looking for phone service you may want to consider cheap phone service with one of our VOIP Phone Providers. Stop paying too much for home phone service and Business Phone Service

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  4. I only use my phone to make infrequent calls (no texting, no data) but I stayed with ATT because I know I can get coverage, something we struggle with out here plus I work from home occasionally and can't take the chance of not having coverage when I get calls from customers or management. We are not on a plan but had been. I know it might be cheaper to switch but I don't want to rock the boat due to my work from home permissions.

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