I am someone who scrutinizes every cent that goes out the door. I work hard for my money and I know that the only chance I have at retiring some day is to save money now. I believe my generation will be the first generation in a hundred years that can not retire due to a lack of social security and retirement savings. There will be exceptions – those who have good pensions and those who managed to save. I hope to be one of those exceptions.
I am actively working on trying to figure out how I can reduce my cell phone bill. I am paying $65 a month (almost $800 a year!) for two phones with nearly unlimited minutes. This seems like a decent deal, but we make very few calls. Most of our calls tend to be to family or end of day “Are you going to work all night again?” calls. I have a cell phone from work, so I do not need my personal cell phone for work purposes. We gave up a home phone years ago, electing to go entirely cell based.
There are not many options for reducing the cost. Most of the standard cell phone companies charge around $35 a month per line for a minimal account, so there would be no advantage in downgrading to a lesser plan. There are pre-paid cell phones, which may be a good option. I do not know much about how they work out from a cost perspective. I have also been thinking about getting a home based landline again and dumping the cell phone entirely. Last time I had a home based phone it was around $25 a month for the line plus any long distance charges. This is contrary to current trends, but I am kind of a contrary sort of person.
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2 comments:
Think again honey. I love my cell.
We use prepaid cell phones (to augment, not replace our land line). They work well, and are inexpensive, if all you do is make low-minute voice calls. Generally, the services try to nickel-and-dime their target audience to death (kids), but if you don't need ring tones and SMS you're probably fine.
There are two main parameters for the pay-as-you-go cell phones: price per minute, and the minimum recurring amount you have to pay in order to maintain your account. We use Virgin Mobile, and we have to pay something like $20-30 every 90 days, to keep our account open. Both Marla and I tend to accumulate minutes, while paying only the minimum amount. In any case, it has always worked out to well under $10 per month for each phone.
Use technology, don't let it use you.
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