Saving Money On Your Cell Phone Bill

We've recently reduced our cell phone bill by at least $15 a month while also upgrading our services received. We rather like it when things like that happen. :)

Before getting into how we did it, though, I want to make clear that I don't think a cell phone is a necessary gadget. It's a useful thing to have, yes, but it's always interesting to see how things that were counted as luxuries a few years ago gradually become "necessities." I think (in my Great Financial Wisdom, born out of my Less Than Thirty Years On This Earth) that there should always be many things you openly and freely leave on the table of "This can be eliminated from our lives if necessary" instead of kept on the table of "I can't stand the thought of living without this!" As we've discussed our finances, Strider and I have tried to keep the cell phones on the first table. When we get into a bigger place of our own (right now we're renting a studio apartment on generous terms from Strider's parents), a cell phone might be one of the corners to cut.

So all that said: I'm going to write about how we managed to reduce our cell phone bill by close to $200/year, but more money still could be saved by going down to one phone (instead of one for each of us) or by eliminating them altogether. I am striving to always remember those options.

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When we were engaged, we set up a contractual plan with a major carrier together. We only had voice calls, no texting, and were locked into paying approximately $63 a month. It was worth it in those early months, especially as I spent time the summer before our wedding in another state and we (shockingly enough) logged many, many hours on the phone with each other.

Part way through our contract time, a friend (hi, friend!) mentioned Net10 and their pay as you go plans. I'm ever one for change and trying new things out; Strider is Mr. Loyalty And Not Rocking The Boat. This meant we spent a few months talking about whether or not to switch our plan... after our contract ran out. If you have a contract, it is probably not financially wise to switch and break your contract; there are heavy penalties for doing such.

I did a lot of research on pay as you go plans and shared it all with Strider. He agreed to switch to Net10, with the caveat that if we didn't like them, we would go back to a major carrier and their contractual plans.

We made the switch in July and are (so far) mostly loving the new plans. There's a bit of financial outlay at first, as we needed to purchase new phones for each of us. We ended up with the LG 900G and have been completely happy with it. The qwerty keyboard woks beautifully for texting (although I've heard from those who have a more golden status in years that the keys are a bit close together); the camera transfers pictures to our laptop beautifully via bluetooth technology (remember my post on carrot lemonade? That picture came from my phone); and we usually have signal just as good, if not better, than we had with our other carrier.

How does the plan work? There are several options and you don't have to lock yourself into any one of them, which is very nice for flexibility. Strider uses fewer minutes than I do (on his job, which takes up 8-10 hours of his day, cell phones are a No-No. For some reason the company thinks they might be a distraction on the factory assembly line... ;), so we last month we purchased a set of 900 minutes for $60 for him. It will last 'til sometime in November. Texts only take up half a minute, so I can text him a grocery list at 10 pm that will be ready for him when he gets off the line. We have me set up for a monthly renewal plan of 750 minutes for $25 (my texts take up a minute), although I may switch to a plan with slightly fewer minutes, considering how few minutes I've been using... and that's even with putzing around on the 'net on my phone.

Oh, yes. Did I mention? I can check my e-mail and run internet searches on the phone... supposedly can use Facebook too, although I'm having trouble getting the app to work (Striderling got his to work just fine, so it's probably just little ole me). I will admit to loving checking my e-mail during lag times when I'm out and about (getting to work to pick Strider up and being there early), but my time could definitely be better spent in reading or prayer in those moments and so if I cut that out, I could save myself minutes and maybe us dollars. Talk about a good thing all around!

The negative: Their customer service does leave something to be desired. We had a problem, initially caused by an error on my part, but worsened tenfold by customer service people creating bigger problems. I came close to minoring in Spanish and Latin American studies in college and am of the view that Americans need to get more multi-lingual, but it was difficult for even me to consistently follow what the customer reps were saying sometimes because of their lack of familiarity with English. The problem we ran into caused my phone to be unuseable for a few days days (first day was my fault, second and third were entirely Net10's and should never have happened). This was not cool, but they more than made up for the errors on their part. They gave me minutes and days to compensate for my lost time, which I appreciate greatly. Of the six customer reps I talked to over the course of three days, five of them really wanted to get the problem fixed and help me as much as possible, even if they weren't always sure of how to do it.

That is the only glitch we've run into, and since we've been with them since July, we've had time to decide what we think. And we're pretty happy with the switch. Less money spent, we're not locked into a contract, and we have texting... fabulous!

Another word of advice for looking into switching to a pay as you go plan: Make sure that you get coverage in your area! We'd heard good things about Virgin Mobile's plans (although I think, ultimately, that would have been too expensive for us) but when I looked them up, we were in a dead zone.