So now you have your shiny new android device, your data plan, and you?re slinging apps around like a pro. You even found a couple cool new coffee shops using google maps. Everything seems perfect. And then you get your bill.
Cellphone service isn?t cheap, and for whatever reason smart phones are still considered luxury items. But while you can never make your service ?free? there are some ways to make sure that you?re not paying more than you absolutely have to. I?m not suggesting that you skimp on service, but if there?s a way to lower your costs and you only lose what you weren?t using anyway, wouldn?t you consider it?
While all my examples will be about Verizon plans, a lot of this can be applied to Sprint/Tmobile/ATT plans. If someone knows some specifics for these other carriers, let me know, and I?ll plug the information in.
Before you make any changes to your plan or features, you need to CAREFULLY look at your current usage, habits, and obligations before making any changes to your account. Overages will quickly eat up ANY potential savings and then some, and depending on where you got your phone (a prime example is wirefly) there may be a penalty imposed if your lower your plan before a set amount of time is passed. I am not responsible if you do something that incurs nasty overages, and reps will laugh at you if you try to blame text written online anyway, so think before you make any changes.
The cheapest plan is not always the way to go:
A common mistake made by customer is that when they?re trying to cut down their bill, they cut out everything they can to the absolute minimum plan. Sure, it feels nice to say ?I?m saving as much as possible.? But if you use even a little bit over what that minimum plans allows, the overages will quickly eat up any savings you might make with a lower bill.
When looking at setting up a plan, find one that covers MORE than what you typically use in a month. In other words, if you?re using 500 minutes a month, getting the 450 minute plan isn?t a good idea.
It?s better to have a higher plan than you need for one month and adjust than it is to cut your plan too early and have insane overages. Verizon allows you to change your plan whenever you want, without contract extension or penalty. Use this to your advantage.
How much do you Talk?
One common misconception is that unlimited plans are always the best value, because you never have to worry about overages, and with Verizon?s recent price drop, the unlimited minute package looks very attractive, because let?s face it, we all love the word unlimited. But before you jump for that all you can talk buffet, take a look at your actual usage.
First, let?s look at what?s universal across all plans. If you call mainly other Verizon customers, remember you have unlimited calling to them at any plan level. Additionally, you can call whoever you want and talk to them for as long as you want, if those calls start after 9:01PM and end before 5:59AM or are on Saturday or Sunday (Nights and Weekends). For a lot of customers (myself included) this covers most usage.
Then you have plans that qualify for ?Friends and Family.? For a single line plan of 900 minutes, this allows you to select up to 5 numbers, and with Family plans 1400 minutes or higher you can select up to 10 numbers. These numbers can be any non Verizon Wireless phone numbers, so landlines, other cells, and even 800 numbers are fair game.
Adding/removing/changing a number takes about a day to process. You can change your friends and family numbers at any time, and the only ?penalty? is the one day wait period. One a phone number is active on this list, you have unlimited calling to it. This can be a HUGE benefit for most customers. According to Verizon, most customers spend a majority of their minutes calling a relatively small number of people (that arn?t Verizon already). Adding these numbers could help you drop from unlimited to some other plan, saving quite a bit a year.
I?m not saying that no one needs unlimited, just that if you?re looking to save money, this is the FIRST place you should look.
As I mentioned in my last post, Verizon also gives you the ability to change you plan at any time without extending your contract or incurring any penalty. How does this help? Say that you use your cell a lot more in the summer than you do during the winter (or vice versa). You can bump yourself up to a higher rate plan for those busier months and bump it back down at the end of it with just a few simple phone calls or visit to any Verizon store. Again, it might not seem like a lot of money, but all these little changes can add up.
Txt, Pix, and Flix
After you have your Talk plan figured out, it?s time to check your texting usage. This is one of the areas where Unlimited is actually a good thing for a lot of customers. While you might not want to call your brother/friend/etc every day, sending them a quick text or two every day is something most of us wouldn?t think twice about.
That being said, not everyone needs unlimited, and there are some nice ?tricks? to saving money. The first thing is to look at your current usage. Even on an unlimited texting plan you?ll still get a breakdown of who you were texting (if they are verizon or not) and the raw number of texts you send out in a month.
If most of your texts are to and from Verizon customers, you can get unlimited Verizon to Verizon Texting (and 500 out of network texts) for $10 a month, or 50% less than fully unlimited texting for a single line plan. There is a $5 a month option, but this only gives you 250 texts, and overages are scary.
For family plans, it becomes a bit harder to break down. A good rule of thumb is if you have more than one person who texts often on the family plan, it?s often cheaper just to keep unlimited texting. Unlimited Texting is $30 a month for the family plans. So if you add up all the $10 and $5 plans and it?s close to or higher than that, stick with unlimited.
Cut your landline!
Yes, I?m completely serious. This is something a lot of people don?t even consider, but could end up saving them more than any other option combined. A lot of users rarely use their landline, or if they do, it?s in ways that can easily be replaced by just using your cellphone more.
Obviously you don?t want to cut your line if you have poor/no signal in the house, but you can still save some money by dropping your phone package down to a local only line. If your cellphone?s work great in your house though, why pay for a second line when you already have a device that gives you free long distance? That?s the real point of this suggestion. You?re paying for your cellphone anyway, why not use it as often as possible, to get the max value out of it?
Sentimental about the phone number? You can port it over to a cellphone (in most areas) and add it to your current plan either by replacing your phone number, or making it a $10 added line to your family share plan. Get a cheap flip phone for your house (the Motorola Entice is an excellent choice) and then those people who refuse to call cellphones can still call you.
The other thing to consider is bundles. Often you get a discount on your Internet (if you have DSL) for having a phone line through the same company. These companies will even hint (sometimes outright lie) and say you need to maintain phone service to get Internet access. You don?t. What it will do is cause your Internet bill to go up slightly, but more often than not, the cost of your DSL line on it?s own will still be far less than the two combined.
This option isn?t for everyone, but if you?re like a lot of customers and rarely use that thing on the wall, why not put it out of it?s misery?
Closing thoughts:
Those are just a couple of ways that you might be able to save money on your phone bill without removing functionality you use from your device. Cutting your bills doesn?t have to be about sacrificing your ability to text or talk to your family, it?s about removing features you don?t use anyway.
Below, I?ll put some more advanced suggestions (Google Voice, dropping features, etc), but I wanted to seperate them so that people just looking for simple pointers wouldn?t have to wade through my technobabble.
Again, I cannot stress enough that it?s important for you to know what you?re currently using before you make any changes on your account.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at mennomobileblog (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow me on twitter @mennomobile. Good luck and happy cost cutting!
Cellphone service isn?t cheap, and for whatever reason smart phones are still considered luxury items. But while you can never make your service ?free? there are some ways to make sure that you?re not paying more than you absolutely have to. I?m not suggesting that you skimp on service, but if there?s a way to lower your costs and you only lose what you weren?t using anyway, wouldn?t you consider it?
While all my examples will be about Verizon plans, a lot of this can be applied to Sprint/Tmobile/ATT plans. If someone knows some specifics for these other carriers, let me know, and I?ll plug the information in.
Before you make any changes to your plan or features, you need to CAREFULLY look at your current usage, habits, and obligations before making any changes to your account. Overages will quickly eat up ANY potential savings and then some, and depending on where you got your phone (a prime example is wirefly) there may be a penalty imposed if your lower your plan before a set amount of time is passed. I am not responsible if you do something that incurs nasty overages, and reps will laugh at you if you try to blame text written online anyway, so think before you make any changes.
The cheapest plan is not always the way to go:
A common mistake made by customer is that when they?re trying to cut down their bill, they cut out everything they can to the absolute minimum plan. Sure, it feels nice to say ?I?m saving as much as possible.? But if you use even a little bit over what that minimum plans allows, the overages will quickly eat up any savings you might make with a lower bill.
When looking at setting up a plan, find one that covers MORE than what you typically use in a month. In other words, if you?re using 500 minutes a month, getting the 450 minute plan isn?t a good idea.
It?s better to have a higher plan than you need for one month and adjust than it is to cut your plan too early and have insane overages. Verizon allows you to change your plan whenever you want, without contract extension or penalty. Use this to your advantage.
How much do you Talk?
One common misconception is that unlimited plans are always the best value, because you never have to worry about overages, and with Verizon?s recent price drop, the unlimited minute package looks very attractive, because let?s face it, we all love the word unlimited. But before you jump for that all you can talk buffet, take a look at your actual usage.
First, let?s look at what?s universal across all plans. If you call mainly other Verizon customers, remember you have unlimited calling to them at any plan level. Additionally, you can call whoever you want and talk to them for as long as you want, if those calls start after 9:01PM and end before 5:59AM or are on Saturday or Sunday (Nights and Weekends). For a lot of customers (myself included) this covers most usage.
Then you have plans that qualify for ?Friends and Family.? For a single line plan of 900 minutes, this allows you to select up to 5 numbers, and with Family plans 1400 minutes or higher you can select up to 10 numbers. These numbers can be any non Verizon Wireless phone numbers, so landlines, other cells, and even 800 numbers are fair game.
Adding/removing/changing a number takes about a day to process. You can change your friends and family numbers at any time, and the only ?penalty? is the one day wait period. One a phone number is active on this list, you have unlimited calling to it. This can be a HUGE benefit for most customers. According to Verizon, most customers spend a majority of their minutes calling a relatively small number of people (that arn?t Verizon already). Adding these numbers could help you drop from unlimited to some other plan, saving quite a bit a year.
I?m not saying that no one needs unlimited, just that if you?re looking to save money, this is the FIRST place you should look.
As I mentioned in my last post, Verizon also gives you the ability to change you plan at any time without extending your contract or incurring any penalty. How does this help? Say that you use your cell a lot more in the summer than you do during the winter (or vice versa). You can bump yourself up to a higher rate plan for those busier months and bump it back down at the end of it with just a few simple phone calls or visit to any Verizon store. Again, it might not seem like a lot of money, but all these little changes can add up.
Txt, Pix, and Flix
After you have your Talk plan figured out, it?s time to check your texting usage. This is one of the areas where Unlimited is actually a good thing for a lot of customers. While you might not want to call your brother/friend/etc every day, sending them a quick text or two every day is something most of us wouldn?t think twice about.
That being said, not everyone needs unlimited, and there are some nice ?tricks? to saving money. The first thing is to look at your current usage. Even on an unlimited texting plan you?ll still get a breakdown of who you were texting (if they are verizon or not) and the raw number of texts you send out in a month.
If most of your texts are to and from Verizon customers, you can get unlimited Verizon to Verizon Texting (and 500 out of network texts) for $10 a month, or 50% less than fully unlimited texting for a single line plan. There is a $5 a month option, but this only gives you 250 texts, and overages are scary.
For family plans, it becomes a bit harder to break down. A good rule of thumb is if you have more than one person who texts often on the family plan, it?s often cheaper just to keep unlimited texting. Unlimited Texting is $30 a month for the family plans. So if you add up all the $10 and $5 plans and it?s close to or higher than that, stick with unlimited.
Cut your landline!
Yes, I?m completely serious. This is something a lot of people don?t even consider, but could end up saving them more than any other option combined. A lot of users rarely use their landline, or if they do, it?s in ways that can easily be replaced by just using your cellphone more.
Obviously you don?t want to cut your line if you have poor/no signal in the house, but you can still save some money by dropping your phone package down to a local only line. If your cellphone?s work great in your house though, why pay for a second line when you already have a device that gives you free long distance? That?s the real point of this suggestion. You?re paying for your cellphone anyway, why not use it as often as possible, to get the max value out of it?
Sentimental about the phone number? You can port it over to a cellphone (in most areas) and add it to your current plan either by replacing your phone number, or making it a $10 added line to your family share plan. Get a cheap flip phone for your house (the Motorola Entice is an excellent choice) and then those people who refuse to call cellphones can still call you.
The other thing to consider is bundles. Often you get a discount on your Internet (if you have DSL) for having a phone line through the same company. These companies will even hint (sometimes outright lie) and say you need to maintain phone service to get Internet access. You don?t. What it will do is cause your Internet bill to go up slightly, but more often than not, the cost of your DSL line on it?s own will still be far less than the two combined.
This option isn?t for everyone, but if you?re like a lot of customers and rarely use that thing on the wall, why not put it out of it?s misery?
Closing thoughts:
Those are just a couple of ways that you might be able to save money on your phone bill without removing functionality you use from your device. Cutting your bills doesn?t have to be about sacrificing your ability to text or talk to your family, it?s about removing features you don?t use anyway.
Below, I?ll put some more advanced suggestions (Google Voice, dropping features, etc), but I wanted to seperate them so that people just looking for simple pointers wouldn?t have to wade through my technobabble.
Again, I cannot stress enough that it?s important for you to know what you?re currently using before you make any changes on your account.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me at mennomobileblog (at) gmail (dot) com, or follow me on twitter @mennomobile. Good luck and happy cost cutting!
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