5 Ways To Save On Your Cell Phone Bill
Think that your cell phone bill is just something that you have to live with? You might be surprised to learn just how easy it is to save every month on your bill. Here are 5 simple ways to slash your cellular bill and still keep the level of service that you are used to.
1) Go Prepaid
Prepaid wireless has come a long way since it was first introduced. It used to be a service that was geared towards those with bad credit. People who did not mind dealing with sketchy service because none of the major carriers would approve them. Oh how times have changed.
Today, prepaid service is just as good as what you get with the major carriers. In fact, most of the major carriers have their own prepaid spin off companies, using the same lines as the premium company. The only real difference with prepaid is that you are paying your bill at the beginning of the billing cycle instead of at the end.
You can very easily cut your cell phone bill in half by switching to a prepaid plan and for most families, this will be a savings of at least 1000 dollars a year.
2) Keep Your Phone Longer
Cell phones get more expensive every year. The latest generation phones from the top manufacturers can go for nearly 2000 dollars. 2000 dollars for a device that they hope you want to replace within a year.
Save money by not falling for the new tech game and by keeping your phone longer. These expensive phones that have been coming out over the last few years are packed with some amazing hardware. Hardware that gets better with each model, but that is no longer obsolete after a single year. If you can deal without the latest and greatest features, you can have a phone that will reliably serve you for 2 years, 3 years or even longer.
The key is to take care of your phone. Purchase a good case and screen protector and your phone can reliably serve you for years, which will save you thousands of dollars.
3) Merge Your Plans
If you have multiple phone plans in a single household, you are throwing money away. This is something that is fairly common with new couples. They are used to having their own plan and don’t want to bother with the hassle of ditching one of the plans and porting a number to another account.
Combining plans is really not very difficult and can save you big money. It is well worth the time to realize more than 1000 dollars a year in savings. Phone number porting is even made simple by most of the carriers. They want your business, so they will do most of the hard work for you.
Combining two plans can save the average couple nearly $100 a month. Those two $100 plans become one plan for $120. Want even more savings? Switch to prepaid and pay well under $100 for the same level of service.
4) Buy A Used Phone
When the time comes to purchase a phone, why pay over 1000 dollars for a new one when you can pick up a gently used phone for 300 dollars or less.
People are hooked on tech and some people just have to score the latest and greatest phones as soon as they comes out. This leads them to sell perfectly good phones so that they can upgrade. Take advantage of their need for tech to save big on your next phone.
With the technology that goes into phones these days, they do not become obsolete in a year. Even a 5 year old phone has enough processing power to keep the average user satisfied.
5) Get Rid Of Unnecessary Services
All of those little phone charges can add up in a huge way. Cut back on as many of these small charges as you can and come up big on savings.
The biggest offender is phone warranties. Warranty companies only sell these because they make money on them. They are not in a charitable business. After a year of paying for a warranty, you have likely paid enough money in to the program to pay for your own phone if yours breaks. They will only replace your phone with a cheap re-manufactured one after all. Ditch the warranty, invest your money in a good phone case and you will come out ahead.
Apps are the next biggest waste of money. There is almost no reason to pay for an app because there is always a free version that does the same thing. You might have to deal with a few advertisements, but the savings will be well worth it.
