The Momma Knows

If you’ve ever looked at your budget and wondered where all of your money went, you know where I’m at. The paychecks pay the bills. We have a little extra for a coffee or a pizza once in a while, but that’s it. It seems like no matter how hard we try, we just don’t seem to get ahead. If you can’t seem to put enough money in savings to build up a decent emergency fund, take a hard look at your budget.

Eating out? Well, you know that’s not a necessity, and sometimes we fall into the rut. But what other budget busters are there? As I studied our expenses, one thing stood out to me.

The cell phone bill.

How the big cell phone companies can get away with charging what they do is beyond me. The trouble is, we pay it. We pay it every single month because we need the phone, we want the convenience of our smartphones, and we think we have no choice. We just pay their ransom.

In February, my 18 year old’s phone contract ended—the contract that was attached to mine. I told her to check out her options for a phone of her own, because my days of paying $136 a month were ending. I was looking forward to a much cheaper phone bill. I had a rude awakening when the bill didn’t go down by half, as I expected it to. Even though I get a 22% corporate discount from Verizon through my work, it STILL came out to over $100/mo for one phone.

She looked at Verizon, AT&T, Spring, and T-Mobile’s contract plans. All were similarly priced to the excess. Verizon even wanted her to put a $500 deposit down because she doesn’t have any credit. Like THAT was going to happen! Ha! Then she checked out some no-contract plans, and found Virgin Mobile.

Their plans are cheap! $35-55 per month, even for a smartphone. She cashed her paycheck, purchased the phone she wanted (A really nice HTC Evo 4G), activated it, and was on her way. That got me thinking. I did some calculations.

Verizon, $103/mo X 18 mos. left on my contract= $1854

 

Virgin Mobile $45/mo X 18 mos. = $810

New Smartphone for Virgin         = $190

Verizon’s cancellation fee           = $300

                                                 TOTAL COST            $1300

                                                 TOTAL SAVINGS        $554

That’s all it took to get me to kill my expensive cell phone contract. I bought a phone, ported my number, chose the $45/mo plan, and cancelled my contract with the big V. Even with paying their early cancellation fee I am still saving over $500 over the next 18 months.

And beyond that? It’s cake. A $696 savings per year for me, at $58 per month.

Compare what you’ve got with what you could get. My contract for my Verizon smartphone included 450 minutes, unlimited texts, and 2Gb of data for around $103/mo. My new plan with Virgin Mobile includes 1200 minutes, unlimited texts, and unlimited data for $48/mo including tax..

If you’re sick of paying the ransom to your cellular phone company, investigate your options. Virgin Mobile uses all of Sprint’s towers, so as long as you have Sprint service in your area, you’ll have Virgin service.I made sure I would have service on our Hawaiian vacation prior to porting my number, and I had NO service issues there at all.

There are other no-contract companies. Most even carry the iPhone, if you want one of those. They all carry nice Samsung Galaxy SII and Blackberries too. And many of those are on sale right now for 15%-25% off, through May 25th.

You do have options. You don’t have to offer your firstborn child just to have a decent smartphone, and you don’t have to bust your budget to do it, either. If you’ve got a teen asking for a phone, one of Virgin’s feature phones plus a $35 plan will take care of them very nicely.

Have you done it? Have you cancelled your pricey cell phone contract? Tell me about it!

Disclosure: I like Virgin Mobile’s plans so much that I became an affiliate. They did not ask me to write this review, nor did they compensate me for it. I do receive a small commission if you click one of the links and make a purchase.