In the early years of cell phone service, I had a prepaid phone with just a few minutes per month that I used just for emergency calling. Then, 8 years ago, I upgraded my phone to a smart phone, which meant (at the time) that I also had to upgrade my service to a contract with a cell phone carrier. But, with that upgrade, my monthly bill went way up!
Fast forward to today. My husband also wanted a smart phone. Plus, we wanted a phone available for my boys for emergency calls (not a smart phone) since we don't have a home phone. But, adding all those extra phones meant that our cell phone bill was going to skyrocket even higher!
I started doing research on our best options for switching our cell phone service. And, I discovered lots of great prepaid options that even include data!
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- Total Wireless - This carrier uses the Verizon network and is $25/month for unlimited Talk & Text or $35 for Unlimited Talk & Text + 5 GB of 3G data. There are additional deals for 2, 3, or 4 lines with unlimited talk, text, and data. You can use your own phone to save money on new phones.
- Straight Talk Wireless - $45 for Unlimited Talk, Text & Data (up to 5GB's of high speed data). You can also bring your own device to save money on a phone.
- Metro PCS - Unlimited Talk & Text plus 1 GB of 4G LTE data for $30 per month (and only $25 with a family plan). Metro PCS uses the T-Mobile network.
- Boost Mobile - Get Unlimited Talk & Text plus 2 GB's of high speed data for only $30 per month when you sign up for Auto Re-Boost (which means it automatically adds funds at the end of the month).
You can also check for contract and prepaid deals for the major carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint).
How we Saved Money on our Cell Phone Service
We ended up switching to Total Wireless since we live in a more rural area where not all carriers work very well (like T-Mobile). I knew that Verizon worked well for us, so I wanted to stay in that same network. I bought 2 basic phones for $40 each at Walmart and then switched over my (ancient) iPhone 4 to Total Wireless for a $10 activation fee. So, we now have 3 phones with the same monthly bill as previously for just 1 phone!
We've been using the service for a couple of weeks with no problems. If you are used to 4G speeds, you might have trouble going down to 3G, but my iPhone only works on 3G anyway so it's not been an adjustment.
What about you? Have you tried switching your cell phones to save money?
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