How much do you pay for your phone?

**Drake3287** · 01-02-2015, 04:39 PM

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. I have the family plan with Verizon and all 5 of us have an iPhone with a shared10G of data per month. I'm paying $279. per month, my 2 kids in college are payed for by me and my older son who works and is out of the house is charged 1/5 of the bill. Still a lot of money!

**frugalredhead** · 01-02-2015, 05:19 PM

We pay $128 for me and DH. That's with a 22% corporate discount off of the line access only. I looked into switching to Ting, but they run off the Sprint network which is terrible where I live. We both have brand new smartphones and have the 2nd lowest data plan we can get.

**LittleMissSplendid** · 01-02-2015, 08:57 PM

I use Cricket and pay $25 per month for unlimited talk and text.

**sblatner** · 01-02-2015, 10:34 PM

Originally posted by Drake3287 View Post

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. I have the family plan with Verizon and all 5 of us have an iPhone with a shared10G of data per month. I'm paying $279. per month, my 2 kids in college are payed for by me and my older son who works and is out of the house is charged 1/5 of the bill. Still a lot of money!

We pay about the same for Verizon - 4 phones and 10G of data. That's over $3k for cell phones. Just way too much. A T & T seems to have a much cheaper plan so I'm going to Verizon next week to see if there are any options.

**feh** · 01-03-2015, 06:04 AM

Saving Advice Forums

http://www.savingadvice.com/forums/general-discussion/78316-cheapest-cell-phone-plan.html

Mobile phone service is one of the most common, biggest wastes of money, IMO. Folks need to stop and think how much they're spending each year.

**a1nipper** · 01-03-2015, 06:31 AM

I pay $156 a month for two smartphones with 2gigs data on each phone.

**cardtrick** · 01-03-2015, 12:22 PM

$35 a month (tax included), for unlimited text, data and limited minutes (although I never seem to even use up 50% of the minutes I have).

**phantom** · 01-03-2015, 07:29 PM

Up until about 6 months ago, my husband and I both had dumb phones on my parents' Verizon plan and gave my parents $60/month, which was more than adding our lines cost them but less than 2/5 of their total bill for 5 phones. (We thought this was fair, although my parents would have accepted less.) Then I bought an iPhone 5 and switched to Ting, so we started paying about $25 for my phone and $30 to my parents for my husband's. I just bought my husband an iPhone 5 for his birthday/Christmas, and we're about 10 days into our first full billing period with both phones on Ting. I'm expecting the bill to between $40 and $60.

My husband was on the phone for about 500 minutes in the first 3 days of the billing period, which scared me a bit. But, I think I can blame most of that on the holidays and expect lower usage in the future. I'm curious to see what our average bills come out to. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to stay under $60 most months, which would make me happy. My goal in switching to Ting was to get us smartphones without paying much more than the $60/month we were used to paying.

**Joan.of.the.Arch** · 01-03-2015, 07:51 PM

Because I don't use my phone for internet, I find $18 per month meets my needs.

**MonkeyMama** · 01-04-2015, 05:07 AM

In 2014 we paid $18/month for cell service (for 2). We have two higher end smart phones that we paid cash for independently of our cell phone plan. Our cell provider is Ting. We have ample data, minutes and texts for our wants. I actually *just* got wifi at work and was the only one regularly using large amount of data so our bill will actually be going down a bit this year. !!

Our tween is not on our plan yet - he just uses wifi and we were able to get him a Moto G for $50. We set him up with a free google voice number. As long as he has wifi he has text and calling and internet.

**greenskeeper** · 01-04-2015, 06:32 AM

$60/month for 2 phones

**JoeP** · 01-05-2015, 08:24 AM

Originally posted by sblatner View Post

We pay about the same for Verizon - 4 phones and 10G of data. That's over $3k for cell phones. Just way too much. A T & T seems to have a much cheaper plan so I'm going to Verizon next week to see if there are any options.

Most Verizon customers are locked into a 2-year contract, have been "loyal customers" for many years, and pay well above market value. If you fall into this category, I'd strongly weigh the option of switching carriers. There are a lot of contract-free options out there. We have a corporate discount on AT&T, 4 lines, unlimited text/talk, shared 15GB data, no contract, for $160/mo after all fees and taxes. We bought our phones off ebay and craigslist.

I'd have a hard time going to a company that has been ripping me off for years, and then asking for the "privilege" of continuing to give them my money. Kind of like the spouse who keeps returning to an abusive relationship.

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 01-08-2015, 05:51 AM

$120 2 smart phones. I can't use ting I use my phone to much. I put in all my bills imported and it told me.

**sdcarwile** · 01-08-2015, 11:18 AM

We still have a home phone. It is $85 and that also included internet. This is the main phone everyone uses.

DH, DS16, and I all have tracfones that cost $10/each per month.

I also have 2 other sons ages 12 and 9 who don't have cell phones.

So $115 total and that included home wifi.

How much do you pay for your phone?