Saving gobs of money on my cell phone
I love having a cell phone with me. I rarely use it, but knowing it is there makes me feel better. I know I can use it in case of a car emergency, or just to check in with my husband about something. It is practically a requirement at school to have in case of a school crisis or evacuation.
Unlike many, I’ve been unable to get rid of my landline at home since my cell phone has almost no reception in my house. We like to joke that we live in a lead box, since reception is fine as soon as we step outdoors.
After paying $40/month for years for a small number of minutes, we had had enough. We were paying $480/year for something we rarely used! Professor X researched all the prepaid plans and found that T-Mobile had the best deal because you could buy minutes that lasted an entire year. Last year we decided to put out a little initial investment and buy $100 pre-paid T-Mobile phones. We could have gotten cheaper, but we wanted the camera feature 😉
Then we bought $100 prepaid 1000 minute plan. By buying 1000 minutes, I became a “Gold Star” member. That means that the minutes lasted for an entire year. I had 500 previous minutes from last year and because I was a “Gold Star” member, for $10 I was able to carry over those 500 minutes (plus the $10 worth) for the next year! This means that I have saved $740 in the last 2 years alone!
Because we don’t do a ton of long distance calling we do not have a long distance plan on our land line. So the $10 I spent this year on my cell phone will also cover all of my long distance for the year!
Wow that is some good savings!
How is there service while traveling? We have been with Sprint for a long time and trust their connnections. We usually have service while traveling.
Anonymous: the service is actually good for me everywhere BUT my home. I haven’t had any trouble when traveling. Of course, that will totally depend on where you live and what your cell towers are like in that area.
I also don’t have LD on my land line – I use my cell phone to call. I have Cingular (now AT&T) and must admit, we have a lot more dropped calls since the buy out. A lot more. And a lot more dead spots while traveling.