Saturday, June 15, 2013

Your Cell Phone Bill is Expensive and Mine is $8 A Month: Here’s Why

Photo Credits; Thank you: Jakub Krechowicz


To get this out of the way: I have been asked what phone I have. I have this one. 


A couple of years ago I had an amazing thing called a contract phone. And that contract phone had a mind of it’s own… or of a corporation. Periodically, despite whatever the contract said that I had signed it came to me with “miracle bills” in the mail. More like “devil bills”.



I lowered my phone bill from costing me around $65 a month at the very least to $8.

Here’s the catch: I have to have two numbers. But I’m always around WiFi. So, I don’t mind.


Once it was $78. Another time it was $142. And random times, since I had no idea how to save money it came to me with a brilliant $480 phone bill. It took me days and days of research. It took a lot of learning and researching phone plans. Having been a person who didn’t know much about having an android (but somehow everything about a flip phone) I had to research the art of “Apps”.



I knew nothing about Apps.

I bought an android cellphone that would connect to the WiFi anywhere. Even without service. This phone cost me about $80. This came with a $25 dollar phone card. So, the android phone itself was really about $55.

Here is what is important.

That $25 phone card lasts for 3 months for as long as the minutes are there. So around 480 minutes and 250 free texts I have what I like to call “my outdoor phone”.  (What you would consider a cell phone.)  So, this averages to $8.33 a month.


Nobody calls anyone anymore. Everyone texts.  I rarely need to use text when I’m outside because I am outside. Everywhere I go there is usually free WiFi around. And I have an App. This app is called TextPlus which you can download here.


I pay the usual $0.99 when I want minutes at home. Which is almost never. If I want to make a phone call I can use Google Talk and call locally for free. And with TextPlus, as long as you’re connected to your WiFi around you and not your service plan you can text whoever in the US for free.


So! To the basics.

Android Phone= $55 initially
Service plan for out of the house/emergency phone= $8.33 Averaging per month
Texting= (with WiFi) Free & Unlimited
Home phone plan= (with TextPlus & WiFi) $0.99 for 40 minutes as I go, when I want OR call out with Google Talk for free.


So, how much is your bill?








tags: save money, phone bill, cellphones, making bank, bills, finances, home, verizon, at&t, wireless, wireless phone bill, how to save money

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