Cell phone costs?

[bjscheel]

We just upgraded to unlimited data on Verizon. 4 phones we own outright, $160/month with autopay. I found out the autopay has to be from a checking account to get the discount, not a cc.

We really have to have Verizon in our rural part of the country. We saved a lot of money for years, on Tracfone using Verizon towers but found with the smartphones, no coverage in southern Iowa so once we had smartphones we moved onto DH's Verizon plan.

 

[robinb]

Check out the website https://www.whistleout.com/ to easily compare plans. If your phones are paid for in full you should be able to transfer to another plan and save money.

 

[wenrob]

My son says Wifi at school is too slow so he likes to use our data. They use their phone during class to look things up and such.

I’ve never tried it out myself but they’re the first ones to complain if YouTube loads too slow at home and have never complained about the school’s. I had their browser abilities limited to only what I would allow but going into middle school I had to open them up because they do use their phones in just about every class.

 

[akayek31]

We have 3 lines with T-Mobile. I have a Samsung 7, a tablet, and my son has a iPhone 6s+. We pay 204 with unlimited talk, text, and data. We are making payments on the phones and tablet or it would be $115 a month. Love T-Mobile Tuesday. Have gotten so much free stuff.

 

[DawnM]

I think our bill is around $500 a month, unlimited data, 7 people, paying monthly for 3 phones. Verizon.

 

[DawnM]

We have 3 lines with T-Mobile. I have a Samsung 7, a tablet, and my son has a iPhone 6s+. We pay 204 with unlimited talk, text, and data. We are making payments on the phones and tablet or it would be $115 a month. Love T-Mobile Tuesday. Have gotten so much free stuff.

Like what? Genuinely curious.

I did see they had $15 free for an uber type ride thing but they don't service our area.

 

[DawnM]

We have the ATT $160 for 4 lines plan and added on two more lines (one tablet, $5/more and one phone, $15/more) So the total is $180.

Unlimited talk/text and 15gb shared with the potential for 10gb to roll over.

We get $25 off for DH's work deal
And DH's company pays $80 of it.

We are paying on 2 phones, $20 and $25

So, Total retail with 2 phones we are still paying for is $225 plus tax.
Our portion ends up being around $125/mo.

 

[minushka72]

We signed up for the new Xfinity Mobile last month. 3 Smartphones and we only pay a maximum $45.00 per month for unlimited data. Internet plans with Xfinity allow up to 5 lines for no additional cost with unlimited talk and text and then you just pay for data by the gig or unlimited. Each GB is $12 up to 3 GBs and then you pay $45 for unlimited. So far so good and it uses the Verizon network (AFAIK) so service has been good.

 

[Jaime4004]

Like what? Genuinely curious.

I did see they had $15 free for an uber type ride thing but they don't service our area.

We just switched to tmobile this week. The tmobile tuesday deal was $2 gc to dunkin donuts, for each line. So $8 for dunkin donuts for us, we were happy dunkin fans.

We pay $160/month for 4 lines on tmobile for unlimited data/talk/text and includes taxes and fees. Also includes netflix. Does not include the phones that we are still paying off and the new iphone 8 that DH just got.

 

[robinb]

For others reading this thread, Sprint is running a special unlimited talk, text and data free for one year if you switch and bring your own phone. I switched about 2 months ago and I’m paying about $10 per month in fees for 2 iPhones on the plan.

 

[shystalips]

The cheapest you will get is to purchase your phones outright. As long as you don't purchase the latest flagship phones you can get away pretty cheap. I am using a note 5 tmobile version on mintsim for around 15/month for 2 GB 4G data then throttled and unlimited talk/text. My wife and 2 kids also are on mintsim. So all together we pay around $60 for 4 lines. You can also get the 5GB option at $20/ month. Only caveat is that you purchase for 3/6/or 12 month intervals. Works for me because it helps me meet minimum spend if I open a new credit card

 

[dina444444]

I’m paying about $100/month for unlimited talk/text/data with ATT, it’s just me on my plan. It’s the new unlimited plan from them so I am getting free hbo and a $25 statement credit on my Directv bill each month. I bought my new iPhone (8 plus) through the Apple upgrade program so I do have a fee for my phone, but it’s not bundled into my cell phone plan.

 

[DawnM]

We just switched to tmobile this week. The tmobile tuesday deal was $2 gc to dunkin donuts, for each line. So $8 for dunkin donuts for us, we were happy dunkin fans.

We pay $160/month for 4 lines on tmobile for unlimited data/talk/text and includes taxes and fees. Also includes netflix. Does not include the phones that we are still paying off and the new iphone 8 that DH just got.

Ah. Interesting. I am not sure if DH's job would allow him to use T-mobile, they seem pretty set on using one of the three big companies, although I am not even sure if they include Sprint anymore, his coworkers mostly have Verizon, a few are like us and have AT&T, but it might be worth looking into, esp. since we all have ATT based phones so we could bring them over to T-mobile.

When you say unlimited data, what do you mean? Does it throttle after a while?

 

[dizzy daisy]

H20 Wireless is our provider. I can't say enough good things about them. I am not sure if they are nationwide, and you won't see them advertising anywhere. They use ATT's network and it's been very reliable for us at home and where we've traveled.

My DD16 and I are on the monthly unlimited plan at $28/each (their $30 plan, offers a discount for auto pay). My DH and DS14 are on a pay-as-you-go plan. They spend only $20 each every 8 - 10 weeks. So we spend about $80/month for 4 phones.

Almost all of our messaging is done over wi-fi (whatsapp, viber, etc) as is most of our browsing. My DH refuses to be tied to work via his cell phone so that's why his usage is so low.

We are pretty easy to please with the brand of phone we carry too and that keeps the costs down. We are an android family and all of us currently carry a Galaxy S5 (bought refurbished for about $100 ea). Before that I carried a BLU phone and it was great for the 3 years I had it (at the time I needed an unlocked phone and wanted to keep the price around $100).

 

[Jaime4004]

Ah. Interesting. I am not sure if DH's job would allow him to use T-mobile, they seem pretty set on using one of the three big companies, although I am not even sure if they include Sprint anymore, his coworkers mostly have Verizon, a few are like us and have AT&T, but it might be worth looking into, esp. since we all have ATT based phones so we could bring them over to T-mobile.

When you say unlimited data, what do you mean? Does it throttle after a while?

From my understanding, after it reaches a certain amount (honestly don't remember what it is now, but it was more than our old plan) it goes slower. So it's only been a week and we haven't hit it yet so i'm not sure what that will mean to us. Probably nothing, because I mostly wanted it so I don't have to monitor/restrict the kid's data usage anymore.

 

[akayek31]

Like what? Genuinely curious.

I did see they had $15 free for an uber type ride thing but they don't service our area.

I have gotten Shape magazine, $25 restaurant website 5 times, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robins gift card, Glamour magazine, MLB at bat app for a year, ESPN magazine for a year, a towel, hat, statium bag, socks, ect with t-mobile on it. It is so much more but can't think of it all.

 

[kandb]

are you paying for the phone? $190 seems high for sprint.

We are "renting" the phones per say. The 4 phones are apple 6S, the large ones. I also had to pay around $150 when we initially signed the contract. The contract is 15 months and we give back the phones after the 15 months.

 

[kdonnel]

When you say unlimited data, what do you mean? Does it throttle after a while?

T-Mobile currently throttles after 50gig in a billing period.

 

[robinb]

We are "renting" the phones per say. The 4 phones are apple 6S, the large ones. I also had to pay around $150 when we initially signed the contract. The contract is 15 months and we give back the phones after the 15 months.

Well, that makes things harder. You'll all be without phones at the end of your contract so you won't be able to take them with you unless Sprint allows you to buy your phones from them.

 

[Elle23]

We have ATT and pay 405 per month for 6 phone lines and an iPad, unlimited everything. One phone owned outright.