Save Money on Cell Phones |
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Save Money Cell Phones
- Use BillShrink - Billshink is a company that looks at your cell phone usage (among other things) and tries to help you save money.
- ... Or Use Fix My Cell Bill - For $5 you can upload your cell phone bill and get recommendations on how to save money on your cell phone.
- Get the Right Amount of Minutes - No secret here. If you ending the month with lots of minutes, switch to a plan with fewer minutes and save some money. If you find that you are running out of minutes don't pay overages. If you aren't sure where you fall, consider AT&T with their rollover minutes.
- Look for Friends, Family, and Network plans - A lot of companies allow you to designation people you call most for discounts... That works well for my family. Some companies allow you to pay a little more for unlimited calling in the network. With Sprint that $5 option probably saves me a few dozen dollars every month.
- Skip a Cell Phone Plan - A prepaid cell phone is a good way to save money for those who don't call a lot. Some companies that offer this are TracPhone, Boost, and Virgin.
- Look for a Special Plan - Sprint had a program called SERO (Sprint Exclusive Referral Offer) which was an amazing deal. It was easy to get into as well. I'm not aware of any current deals like that, but it can't hurt to try to find a message board and see.
- Skip Ringtones - The ringtone is one of the worst buys in the history of telecommunications. Sometimes people pay $2 or more for some 15 seconds of a song in the form of a ringtone. I don't understand it. Fortunately a lot of phones, with a little work, will let you upload ringtones on for free.
- Be Careful of Text Messages - I take it back, the text message is one of the worst buys in history of telecommunications. At 10 or 15 cents for around 150 characters, it's the most expensive data in the world. If you do a fair amount of text messaging, consider and unlimited plan or a large bucket of text messages.
- Watch for Contract Changes - Sometimes you can get out of your contract because companies change their terms. For instance they may change the cost of text messaging. When these kind of things happen you may be eligible to get out of your contract for free.
- Swap Your Phone - Companies like Cell Trade USA and Cell Swapper help you work this out. Seems like a decent plan in theory... I haven't had to try it for real.
Manage Your Plan
Avoid Cell Phone Extras
Get Out of Your Cell Phone Contact
Getting out of your contract maybe a way to save money. Perhaps you want to drop your phone altogether... or maybe you see another plan with a different carrier that's going to save you a few dollars. Either way, it's better to get out of a big termination fee and save some cash
I saved the best tip for last... If your contract is up (or if you can get out of via the method above), call up your current company and say that you are thinking of switching to another carrier to get the sexy phone (Blackberry Storm, Apple iPhone, Palm Pre) on their competitor's network. You'll often get sent to the retention department, where they will try to make you happy with all sorts of extras. It's better for them to keep you at a discount than to go recruit a new customer to replace you. Now some may see this as a little dishonest, but I think it's fair game. I would have an iPhone now if it was available at Sprint. Because it's not, I feel they should give me a reason to stick with them.
Photo Credit: MarkKelley
This post deals with:cell phone bill, cell phone usage, cell phones, how to save money
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Don’t overlook employer discounts, either. My employer has special deals on billions of different products/services, including cell phone plans.
Rollover minutes are nice. The vast majority of our usage is night and weekend or mobile to mobile, so we don’t need a lot of minutes. But if we do happen to have a lot of usage one month because of extraordinary circumstances, we won’t get dinged with overages.
Also, if you have a bad experience, see if you can escape the plan without paying the fee. We had a local carrier and ended up very frustrated with the coverage. No reception at the local mall or in the downstairs of our house. My wife called to complained. They verified the crappy coverage and let us out of the contract without paying the fee.
There are a variety of sites that show you how to create ringtones. If you have any technical ability at all, you can probably do it. I have a bunch on my phone. I awake to the sound of “we didn’t start the fire” as my alarm clock and hear the theme to “baseball tonight” when there is an incoming call. I put some of that noisy heavy metal on my wife’s phone.
Be careful with services like BillShrink. They don’t take into account mobile to mobile minutes. My entire family is on one provider which means all of our calls to each other are free (well… nothing is free, but you get the idea).
Oh yes… I’m definitely on the Ultra Simple Plan with my cell phone. I use Virgin. No contract. Pay as you go. So right now, my minutes are gone and I have to top up today. But I’m sure it saves me money. It’s a really basic phone. No websurfing or downloading here, barely even an answering machine, too. It has room for about 3 messages!
Each of my past 4 employers has offered discounts. For my carrier (Verizon) the discounts have been between 18 and 22%. For other carriers I have seen as high as 25%.
Bill Shrink is a nifty site, but along with not factoring in mobile to mobile it also won’t help you out if you can get an employee discount! So be careful :)
Going along with ringtones, don’t be one of those people with the ringback tone… I will hate you.
I can’t understand the ringtone phenomenon, either, that’s for sure! Talk about something that leads to a waste of money… on the other hand, employee discounts are a great deal. Our last account in the States before we moved overseas had a wonderful deal. Also, I think that the phone insurance is often a rip-off for many people. For others – those who destroy phones all the time – it might be worth it.
Jerry
The best thing is to not use your phone so much – that saves me a fortune!
If you have already gone over your alloted minutes for the month, this is how you save?
Call your phone company on the last day of your billing cycle and ask that your plan be upgraded. The upgrade is done retroactively to the begin of your current billing cycle.This makes your overages now within the limits of the new upgraded plan! So now your paying about $10 more instead of 40¢ per minute.(Of course do the math to ensure you will actually save.) Then the following month you can downgrade your plan minutes again.
The catch is that when you upgrade your plan you are entering into a new contract with your service provider.The new contract is going to be extended for a year from the date of upgrade. Not a problem if you planned on staying with your current provider.
Actually a few companies allow you to buy more minutes for the current billing cycle without having to upgrade. I know I did this with Sprint a couple of years back.
Since a new contract typically has a $200 cancellation fee (or value in a new phone upgrade), it’s probably not worth upgrading your account for minute overages unless you weren’t even close.
Nice to see your experience with limiting Cell Phone expenses. Looking forward to sharing this in the Carnival of Money Stories next week.
I dumped my AT&T phone and got out of my cellphone contract when the company changed its terms. (Did you know that if they do that, it voids the contract? They don’t tell you that, but I saw it on the Consumerist site and it worked! No termination fee too. Haha.)
Anyway, I got a prepaid Net10 phone and everything is 10 cents a minute… even International calls which is great since my son is traveling right now.
But the best thing about this is that there aren’t any bills and I know what my costs are because I pay upfront for my calls. It’s great!
I love the idea of going prepaid. I think I will switch as soon as my contract expires at the end of next month. I have already found the plan I’ll be using too. Called StraightTalk from Tracfone, gives 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30mb data for $30! Incredible at 2c a minute and 1c per text or something like that. It is still a fairly heavy use package for much less than I’m paying now.
Prepaid cellular phone plans are great if you don’t use a lot of minutes, or aren’t sure when you’ll be using your minutes. If you’re using a prepaid plan, you’ll never have to deal with a contract or a monthly charge. You pay as you go, refilling your phone whenever it runs out of money. Many major cell phone providers have started offering this kind of service to people who don’t need or want a regular cell phone plan.
Prepaid is the only way to go. I have a Tracfone. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your kids. Calls and texts are less expensive on a TracFone than on other phones and with no contract, there’s no surprises!
PS.
Speaking of cellphones, I came across this Net10 video mashup here: http://no-evil.net. Funny stuff!!
I find prepaid works best for me as I do not use a lot of minutes. I used to pay $40/month under my old plan but since I made the switch to TracFone,I average $10 (if even) per month! No contract! No more paying for unused minutes :)